0-r 



* x o o •••• ^fiJJ-^ * 



< -7*, 



9 I 






•Cp t N c « % 



O 




; 



*64 

■ 



THE >S~3 CS ~ > 

HISTORY OF GREECE, ^ 

FROM THE EAELIEST EECOEDS TO THE CLOSE OP THE 
PELOPONNESIAN WAR , 

INCLUDING- 

3 Itetrlj nf tire dJtngrnpjni nf torn, 



DISSERTATIONS 

ON GEEEE MYTHOLOGY, ON THE HEROIC AGE, OX THE EARLY PAINTERS AND 
SCULPTORS, AND ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. 



J 

E. POCOCKE, Esq. 
Sir THOMAS NOON TALFOUED, D.C.L. 

OXE OF THE JUSTICES OF HER MAJESTY'S COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, 

The late JOHN T. BUTT, Esq. 

AND 

The Eev. J. B. OTTLEY, M. A. 

LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



LONDON: 
PUBLISHED BY JOHN JOSEPH GRIFFIN AND CO. 

53 BAKER-STREET, PORTMAN-SQUARE ; 

AND RICHARD GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW. 

1851. 



3 



LONDON : PRINTED BT WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 



ENCYCLOPAEDIA METKOPOLITAM : 

OR, 

iogstem of $£tubersal l&notolettge : 

ON A METHODICAL PLAN 

PROJECTED BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 

SECOND EDITION, REVISED, 

tfjlki SiHisinn. listnnt ittA Soingntplftj, 



EARLY HISTORY OF GREECE. 

LONDON: 
PUBLISHED BY JOHN JOSEPH GRIFFIN AND CO., 

53 BAKER-STKEET, PORTMAN-SQUARE ; 

AND RICHARD GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW. 

1851. 



THE 

EARLY HISTORY OF GREECE. 



E. POCOCKE, Esq. 
Sir THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, D.C.L. 

ONE OP THE JUSTICES OF HER MAJESTY'S COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, 

The late JOHN T. RUTT, Esq. 

AND 

The Rev. J. B. OTTLEY, M. A. 

LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND GREATLY ENLARGED, 



PREFACE. 



In presenting a new edition of the History of Greece, contained in 
the Encyclopaedia Metropolitan, it has been my object, by a brief 
view of the influences of Mythology upon the early Greeks, to convey 
a preliminary idea of their heroic and legendary belief. To this suc- 
ceeds a compendious notice of the Mysteries, Oracles, and Games of 
that ingenious people. Immediately in connection with this part of the 
work, will be found illustrative notices of the Indo-collegiate system, 
from which, undoubtedly, the Hellenic mythological group was 
modelled. As the nature of the work necessarily precluded an ex- 
tension of this important investigation, I have reserved for a distinct 
volume the Ante-Homeric History of Greece, which will, unaided by 
any rationalizing process, appear for the first time divested of its 
mythical colouring, and a principle be laid down by which its fable 
may be separated from its history. I have treated the Legends of the 
Gods, in accordance with the Trpoifxia of the Homerid of Chios, pre- 
senting a metrical version of the most remarkable passages : the 
originals will be found at the foot of each page. The same method 
has been pursued with the extracts from Homer, iEschylus, Sophocles, 
and the " Legends of Heroes ;" the only exceptions being occasional 
passages from Pope, Francis, Cooke, and Fawkes. 

The papers of Sir T. N. Talfourd, the treatise on the Social Condi- 
tion of the Greeks by the Rev. J. B. Ottley, and the writings of other 
distinguished authors, greatly enhance the value of the work ; while 
the illustrative portion is drawn from the most authentic sources. 

With respect to the introduction of the Greek quantities, occurring 
in the names of gods, heroes, or historical personages, the object has 
been, not to supply the place of a prosodial lexicon, but to give, up 



viii PREFACE. 

to a certain point, a general idea of the Greek system .... e :« 

F ' s 1 of quantities, m 

an English dress. This plan has been pursued tilt, reader is 
supposed to be tolerably versed in its ordinary appht*^ . n> a f ter 
this point, the prosodial marks have been gradually withdX , ^ . an( j 
though some few deviations will occasionally be noticed, they n0 ^ 
of such a nature as to inconvenience the reader, who will have ahy.^ 
gone through copious examples of a similar formation. 



London, May, 1851. 



E. POCOCKE. 



NAMES OF CONTRIBUTORS. 



E. POCOCKE, Esq. 

Chapters L, II., III., IV., V., and VI. ; Chapter VII., excepting the Life of 
Lycurgus ; Chapter VIII., excepting the Lives of Codrus, Draco, Solon, and the 
Peisistratidae. 



SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, D.C.L., 

ONE OF THE JUSTICES OF HER MAJESTY'S COURT OF COMMON PLEAS. 

Chapter XI. Life of Alcibiades. 

, , XIV. The Early Sculptors of Greece. 
, , XV. The Early Painters of Greece. 



The late JOHN T. RUTT, Esq. 
The Lives of Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. 



The Rev. J. B. OTTLEY, M.A., 

LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 

Chapter XIII. The Social Condition of the Ancient Greeks. 



The article on the Peisistratidae, and the articles constituting Chapters IX., X., 
and XII., were contributed to the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana 
by writers who are unknown to the present Editor. They have all been revised for 
this edition. 




\ 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

CHAPTER I. — Preliminary View of the Influence of Mythology 

oyer the Early Greeks .... 1 



CHAPTER II. — Oracles, Mysteries, Festivals, and National Games 



of the Early Greeks . . . . .11 
Section 1. The Oracles .11 

2. The Mysteries . 13 

3. The Isthmian Games . . . . .16 

4. The Xemasan Games . . . . . .17 

5. The Olympic Games . . . . . .19 

6. The Pythian Games 22 

CHAPTER III.— Oriental Sources of Greek Mythology . . 26 

CHAPTER IV.— Popular Legends of the Gods . . . .43 

Section 1. The Legend of Dionysus . . . . .44 

2. The Legend of Dem^ter . . • . .47 

3. The Legend of Apollo 52 

4. The Legend of Hermes . . . . .56 

5. The Legend of Poseidon . . . . .60 

6. The Legend of Aphrodite 63 

7. The Legend of Here ...... 65 

8. The Legend of Athene 66 

9. The Legend of Ares . " 67 

10. The Legend of Hephaistos 68 

11. The Legend of Hestia ... ... 70 

12. The Legend of Artemis . . • . .71 

CHAPTER V.— Legends of Heroes 74 

Section 1. The Legend of Prometheus . . . . .77 

2. The Legend of Inachus 78 

3. The Legend of Io 78 

4. The Legend of Danae and Perseus . . . .80 

5. The Legend of Heracles . . . . .81 

6. The Legend of Deucalion, Hellen, and his Sons . . 85 

7. The Legend of the Jiolids, or Sons and Daughters of 

iEolus 87 

8. The Legend of the Pelopids 89 

9. The Legend of Xiobe 90 

10. Legends of Thebes 93 

11. The Legend of Actaeon ...... 94 

12. The Legend of (Edipus 95 

13. The Legend of the Seven against Thebes . . . 100 

14. The Legend of the Argonauts .... 103 

15. The Legend of Theseus ..... 108 

16. The Legend of Troy . . . ... . .113 

17. Indiau Origin of the Greek Legends . . . 118 

CHAPTER VI.— Sketch of the Geography of Greece . . .121 



> f 



xii 



CONTEXTS. 



CHAPTER VII.— Early History of the 
b. c. 884 to b. C. 585 



Peloponnesian States, 



Section 1. Lycurgus . 

2. Pheidon and Argos • 

3. The Spartan, Military System 

4. The First Messenian War 

5. The Second \\Iessenian War 

6. Corinth 



Page 

136 
. 138 
. 154 
. 156 
. 158 
. 159 
. 161 



CHAPTER VIII. — Athens and other Greek States, from the time 
of Codrus to the Ionic Reyolt, b. c. 500 
Section 1. The Legend of Codrus 

2. Codrus 

3. The Ionic Emigration ...... 

4. Draco ........ 

5. Pythagoras. — The Political, Religious, and Scientific 

Development of the Grecian Philosophy 

6. Solon ........ 

7. The First Sacred War 

8. The Peisistratidse 

9. The Ionic Revolt ...... 

CHAPTER IX.— The Persian War, b. c. 490 to b. c. 469 . 



164 
164 
165 
167 
170 

172 
176 
191 
193 
207 

214 



Section 1. Invasion of Greece hy command of Darius, King of Persia 214 



2. Miltiades 

3. Mustering of the Persians 

Greece, under Xerxes 

4. Aristides and Themistocles 

5. Leonidas . 
6 Pausanias . 



for the final Invasion of 



CHAPTER X.— The Supremacy of Athens, b. c. 469 to b. c. 429 
Section 1. Cimon . . . . . 

2. Pericles ....... 



CHAPTER XL— Alcibiades, flourished about B. C. 400 



216 

222 
228 
249 
257 

268 
268 
275 

292 



CHAPTER XII. — Recapitulation of the History of Greece, from 
the Battle of Marathon to the Close of the 
Peloponnesian Wars, b. c. 490 to b. c. 404 . 314 

CHAPTER XIII. — On the Social Condition of the Ancient Greeks . 357 

Introduction ....... 357 

Section 1. The Social and Military Customs of the Homeric Age . 360 

2. Religious Ceremonies of the Homeric Age • v . 374 

3. Education of the Athenians ..... 383 

4. Education of the Spartans ..... 404 

5. State of Female Society in Athens .... 414 

6. Jurisprudence of the Athenians v . . . . 429 

7. Convivial Habits of the Athenians .... 448 
Conclusions respecting the Social Condition of the 

Ancient Greeks . . . . . .461 

CHAPTER XIV.— The Early Sculptors of Greece .... 467 
CHAPTER XV.— The Early Painters of Greece . . . .492 

List of Illustrations . . 505 

Greek Chronology 509 

Index . }• ' " : |fP|f 



CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE INFLUENCE OF MYTHOLOGY OVER 
THE EARLY GREEKS. 




Hesiod. 



Cooke. 



Who that considers the masculine vigour of the Hellenic mind and Greek facility 
its political energies, would imagine that so constituted, it could place legend, 
faith in untested fables, the wild creations of unrestrained imagination ? 
— that the subtle genius of Themistocles and the intellectual majesty 
of Pericles, would placidly hail traditions discarded by the historic 
mind as transparent fictions ? Yet so it was. The same judgment 
that so profoundly harmonised with the severe grandeur of the 
Olympian Jove, enthroned by Phidias amid the marshalled columns of 
the national temple, bowed to the legend of Aphrodite, the foam-born 
Queen of Love, and the genesis of monsters, endowed with godlike 
powers, but debased by monstrous passions. Strange as this anomaly 
may appear, it is reconcilable with the noble sincerity of the Hellenic 
attributes. The early Greek was essentially a creature of imagination, 
by which he was captivated before his judgment was formed. To sur- 
render himself to her glowing charms, without a doubt of her sincerity 



[H. O.] 



B 



2 



INFLUENCE OF MYTHOLOGY. 



Its effects 
upon the 



Sources of 
his worship. 



Powerful 
religious 
agency of 
Homer. 



— to draw arguments for her truth from the pliant melody of his 
language 1 — such was his delight ; but whilst he thus wooed and won 
Tradition, History was lost to him. 

Endowed with the most active sensibilities, the Greek sought to 
satisfy the ardent aspirations of his devotional and warlike spirit ; he 
yearned to be enrolled amongst the band of heroes whom their valour 
had exalted to the dazzling halls of Olympus. How deeply the grand 
reality of this reward was impressed upon the most powerful intellect, 
is shown by the awful apostrophe of Demosthenes to the heroes who 
fell at Marathon, and the breathless attention which then absorbed the 
very soul of the Athenian. 

But if the genius of the Greek was profoundly emulative, it was not 
less devotional. The first-born son of Hellas found his scripture in 
unclouded skies, and in the solemnities of night, which, expounded by 
the high-priest of Poetry, 1 taught him to adore the golden-haired 
Phoebus, and the silvery brightness of Artemis. To his sensitive imagi- 
nation, the fairest objects of nature became invested with a living per- 
sonality. Local habitation, linked with presiding spirituality, actuated 
his glowing fancy. The Naiads, with their fountains ; the Dryads 
and their groves ; the Fawns, Satyrs, and Oreades, with their moun- 
tains : these he indissolubly associated in a creation that teemed with 
wonders ; and even the starry cope was peopled with visionary beings, 
the offspring of legend. 

There is no instance of the agency of mind in moulding a nation 
to uniformity of worship parallel to that produced by the great Epic 
poet of Greece. At his awakening touch the world of gods and 
of heroes sprang into a vitality so perfect and so noble, as to command 
the faith and homage of myriads. But the true secret of the godlike 
sway of Homer, lay in those sympathies which he implanted in the 
bosom of frail humanity, and then touched with life. The love of 
country; the love of kindred; 2 the love of glory; these were the 
influences that made his countrymen willing and devout believers in the 
mythology he had imagined ; whilst the dignity with which he clothed 
his creations gave to them the charm of reality, and stamped them an 
everlasting model of intellectuality. 

But it is not sufficient to consider Homer merely as the moral 
benefactor of his species. To say, that the great poet gave to his 
countrymen a religious system, and to the world an heritage of glorious 
imaginations, would be to mete out but scanty praise. No poetry of 

1 We shall often have occasion to notice the fondness for bending language to 
suit mythology exhibited by the Greeks. 

Xaftzgiai ithiatffW, oqivouzva rs ticckXaffffoi. 

Absent from her whom in each thought he sees 
One month alone, who feels not ill at ease, 
Tossed by the wintry storms and rolling seas ? 



\ 



RELIGIOUS AGENCY OF HOMER. 



3 



equal extent is marked with less ideality than his — none so strongly characters 

" tics of \' 
poetry. 



with breathing life and actual, recognisable, personality ; abstract sen- tic 



timentalisms are rare, — the scene is fall of animated forms, instinct 
with passion. They seem even to us to be less pictures than sub- 
stantial existences. How admirable the models which they presented 
to the statuary ! and what a noble material did Hellas dedicate to 
eternise the grandeur of the poet's conceptions ! Hard by, on one side 
of Athens, lay the marble quarries of the lucid Pentelic and the veined 
Carystian ; and, on the other side, the snow-white Megarean. And now Effects of his 
pregnant with the majesty of Homer, Attica, the mighty mother of sculpture ° n 
civilization, gave forth from her marble womb, a second birth of 
heroes stamped with the grandeur of their glorious parent. 1 Thus 
did Homer in after ages invest with an imperishable reality those 
awful gods of his country, who took cognizance of broken vows ; and 
through the sublime ministration of Pericles, made them ever present 
to the eye of guilt. But if the creative intellect of the Homeric 
sculptor filled with substantial life the noble forms bequeathed to 
him by the great poet, his most subtle energies were to be tasked in 
embodying conceptions opposed to nature — the Sphinx, the Centaur, 
the Satyr, were demanded by the national faith, and the struggling 
laws of anatomy were to be vanquished : the effort was great, but it 
was successful ; and eighteen centuries have passed in admiration of 
the achievement. But there is yet another peculiarity in the Homeric individuality 
system that distinguishes it from the corporate religious crafts of Egypt Hellenic 
and of India ; — that system cast its hallowed spell over country and over religion, 
home, making a sanctuary of each hearth, and each father the high- 
priest of his domestic temple. 2 How dear to the men of Marathon 
must have been a country such as this ! Nor was this all ; by linking 
humanity with the deity from whom the heroic nature derived its 
being, the poet held out to the warrior the most exalted reward. He its effects 
might now aspire to emulate the mighty achievements of those heroes, enterprise 1 e 
from whom his faith taught him that he had sprung ; whose deeds 
of high emprise glowed before his vision in the war scenes of 

1 The Greeks, who were singularly significant in the application of terms, 
styled a metrical composer <xotmm, « maker, or inventor, highly descriptive of the 
creative power of the art ; the old term in Homer's day was dodos, " songster ;" 
Herodotus is the first who uses the term " inventor." The genius of the East is 

recognised by styling the poet ^jL2j (shair) "one who knows" reminding us 
less of the imaginative invention, than the recitation of previous stores of song, 
while the Hindoos, whose classic language is based upon a poetic structure, give 

him the synonym of " wise," or learned cfff% (kavi). It is singular that this 

should likewise signify the "Sun;" a similar mental process amongst the Greeks 
must have connected the god of Day and the god of Poetry. With the Celts, he 
was the " fear dana," or learned man. 

2 Hence the general alarm at Athens, in the time of Alcibiades, on the mutilation 
of the Hernias, when not only the priests, but every individual, felt terrified at the 
impending vengeance of the gods. 

B 2 



4 



BELIEF IN THE HOMERIC GENEALOGY. 



Mseonides. It was this that exalted the dauntless spirit of Miltiades, 1 
and inspired with resistless energy the lofty daring of Themistocles. 
The gods, from whom they had descended, were from Olympus gazing 
upon them in the battle-field, and how could they fail ? Were they 
not those very deities, who had been the tutelary guardians of their 
ancestors on the plains of Troy ? It must be so ; they doubted not 
the glorious record of the inspired bard of Ionia. 
Greek belief We have seen that the Greek held the Homeric tissue of genealogy 
Homeric a sacred truth, and again and again was he confirmed in this cherished 
genealogy, faith by the tangible evidences of place and substance ; and these 
evidences bore on nature human and divine : and so lifelike was the 
impression madej upon the Hellenic mind by the princely poet who 
bestowed upon Greece its great legendary charter, that it received, 
with the same grateful confidence, the privileged enlargements of his 
successors. 

Application On the towering summit of Acrocorinthus the Greek could realize 
Hellenic tne daring acts °f Medea ; near the well Calli chorus, at Eleusis, he saw 
faith. the very stone 2 on which the goddess Demeter, worn down with 
weariness and grief, rested on her reaching Attica, in search of her 
unhappy daughter Persephone ; 3 while round the well his eye of faith 
could still discern the Eleusinian women singing hymns to the goddess 
and performing their chorus. 4 These gracious evidences of his faith 
ranged up to the most venerable ancestry of the gods ; for the very 
stone which Cronos swallowed in lieu of Jupiter, was to be seen near 
the temple of Delphi. 5 

Jove planted firmly 'mid the expansive earth 

The signal prodigy near Phoebus' shrine ! 
(Marvel to mortals of a future birth) 

Beneath Parnassus' rifts, in Pytho the divine ! 
Legendary The public and decided testimony as a thing not to be disputed, of 
historic ages, the high functionary of the Ephesian temple 6 as to " the image that 
fell down from Jupiter," demonstrates the firm popular belief in these 
relics, even in that historic age. Nay, the enlightened Xenophon ob- 
serves, that as the returning expedition of the Ten Thousand sailed along 
the coast between Sinope and Heracleia, it beheld the very anchoring- 

1 Miltiades traced his origin to Ajax. The Roman lyrist had the same idea of 
the tutelary supervision of the national deity — 

Sive neglectum genus et nepotis, 

Respicis, auctor. Hor. 2.0d 

2 ' 'AyiXoiffro? -tir^u. (triste saxum). 3 Apollodor. Biblioth. i. 5. 
4 Pausan. i. 38, § 6. 

5 Tov fttv Zzb; CT'/ig&fi ««7« %^ovs? zvgvoVzi'/i? 
Tlv6o7 zv riyattlz'/i, yvaXois uvro Hccgr/Hroto, 
255|t6' 'ifizv z^oTiffu, 6aZ[Aci tivyiroi/rt figoroiirt. 

Hes. TJwog., 498. 

6 Acts xix. 35. The term "Neokoros," originally "temple-sweepers" (trans- 
lated "High Clerk"), soon became applied to priestly functionaries of high rank, 
holding the supreme superintendence of the treasures lodged in the temple, as well 
as the chief direction in templar arrangements. Plat. vi. p. 769. 



MORAL TENDENCIES OF HOMER. 



5 



places of the Argo ; 1 while in the historical ages, the identical olive 
tree, planted by Minerva, could be proudly pointed to by the 
Athenian. Nor were the Phocians less confident in their national puodan faith 
faith : they truly were much favoured by the gods ; for they showed 
to Pausanias the historian (who settled at Rome b. c. 170), several 
hardened lumps of clay, the leavings of Prometheus when employed 
in making man. 2 This current of belief, appears to have run freely 
even in the time of Arnobius (a. d. 300), who speaks of a rock in 
Phrygia, whence Pyrrha and Deucalion had taken the stones that 
reproduced mankind ; 3 while at Athens, within the temple of the Athenian 
Olympian Jove, a large cavity in the earth was to be seen, through rellcs ' 
which the waters of the deluge had retired. 4 

To these instances of national faith not a few might be added : 
these will suffice to demonstrate the tendencies and the products of 
the Homeric writings, through the continued agency of Hesiod and 
the Cyclic poets. 

Nor were the Greeks indebted to Homer merely for the sublimity of Moral 
their statuary, and the whole cycle of their imitative arts : his narra- 7Homer* 
tives were often weighty judgments, solemnly impressive to moral 
consciousness ; often did the frequent wanderings of his heroes in 
strange lands, amid foreign rites, inculcate a national toleration to the 
devotional practices of other realms ; a toleration nowhere more fully 
evinced than in the writings of Herodotus. The advice, the friendly 
intercourse, the powerful tutelage of the guardian god is ever vouch- 
safed to the pious hero ; 5 but then piety is the condition — injustice 
would forfeit his claim. One of the most amiable traits in the Religious 
theogony of Homer (if to him we may apply so artificial a term) is 7the n poet 
the general benevolence of his deities towards mankind ; they conde- 
scend to visit the human race in the form of men ; they wander 
among them, share their banquet or their business, and take pleasure 
in their amusements, while they are gratified in being presented with 
the same gifts that please frail mortality. 

In honour of these divinities they indulged in the festivities of 
dance or song; hence their worship assumed a cheerful character. 
Such principles are laid down by Homer in no dull didactic form ; 
they spring gracefully and unbidden from his narrative. But that 
which was the condition of their success, that which made them enter 
the very soul of the nation, was the impressive nature of their form 
and growth. Their wide dissemination orally, the frequency of their 
repetitions, attended by the charm of song and lyre, proved a wider 
and more efficient publication than could possibly have been 
attained at that time by the artificial form of writing. And to what 
an exalted height of valour was the Greek thereby elevated ! His 
national poetry told him of men who entered the conflict with the 

1 "Evda. h 'Agya Xiyirai agft'iirair6a,i, vi. 2, alias v. 10. 

2 Pausan. x. 4, 3. 3 Gent. c. v. p. 158. 

4 Pausan. i. 18, 7. 5 Vide Odyssey, passim. 



6 



HESIODIC THEOGONY. 



Warlike and 

political 

tendencies 

of the 

Homeric 

writings. 



Expansion 
of Legend. 



The same 
principles : 
Oriental 
Literature. 



Didactic 
method of 
the Hesiodic 
Theogony. 



gods themselves, over whom they were victorious ; l how then should 
he fear the mortal enemies of his country ! It was of twofold power : 
while it raised the noblest aspirations of the Attic freeman, it sang 
the glories of a lofty lineage ; and so deep was the impression on the 
Hellenic mind, that in the very whirlwind of the democratic element, 
this column of antiquity remained unshaken. But we must pass 
onward to view the continuous working of enlarged legend upon the 
Hellenic national character and worship, through the successors of 
Homer, whose writings the reader will find amply discussed in 
another volume. 2 

In every country which lays claim to a native literature we find 
that, as tradition passes onward from oral to written legend, there 
ensues a series of natioDal text-books : these, in their ton, form the 
basis for more expansive and discrepant legends ; which again falling 
into the hands of dramatic writers are subjected to another stage of 
mutation. Hence, in Greece, the Homeric songs formed this national 
text-book — whence, 1st. Hesiod ; 2nd. The Cyclic Poets; 3rd. The 
Logographers ; 3 4thly. The Dramatists — largely drew materials, 
expanding, varying, and adapting the legends to harmonise with locality 
or existing ideas ; whilst in others, as in Hesiod, they assumed a 
form more didactic and classified. The same process has wrought in 
India, where the Mahabharatha, the great Epic poem of that country, 
has been much varied in the dramatic treatment of some of its chief 
incidents ; whilst, in Persia, the great national poem, the Shah Nameh, 
or " Book of Kings," in several events, assumes a varying form in the 
hands of authors who have essayed to treat that poem in the form of 
prose compilations. In Hesiod we find the stock of Homeric mytho- 
logy not only enlarged, but artificially arranged ; and new subjects drawn 
from the Orphic doctrines are brought forward, and handled with a 
deep ethical tone and colouring ; while the arrangement of his mytho- 
logy is so organised, as to form a well-assorted storehouse for his 
successors. Of this they not only amply availed themselves, but 
made large additions to his legendary stock. Though their poetical 
powers had weakened, their faith was still strong, and their imagina- 
tion incredibly adaptive. The most artificial outline in narrative 
does not excite suspicion in the pious Hellenic mind. If iEgyptus 
has fifty sons, Danaus has fifty daughters to be married. Io gives 
her name to the Ionic Gulf, and an arm of the Thracian waters is 
styled the Bosporus, from its having been crossed over by her 
in the form of a cow, 4 while again a tendency to find a strict 
parallel in important legends, in themselves somewhat similar, proved 
another source of variety. The same impulse of imagination is 
found in history. Anacreon, a vinous poet, is choked with a grape 

1 Iliad, v. 330. 

2 " The History of Greek Literature," by Talfourd, Blomfield, and others. 

3 Vide " Ionic Logographers," by the Editor, in " The History of Greek 
Literature." 4 Boy,- vogos, the Cow-passage. 



MULTIPLICATION OF LEGENDS. 



7 



stone. 1 The flexible genius of his language tells the Greek that the 
Amazons were female warriors with but one breast, 2 and he can show 
the very spot in Athens where they were crushed by Theseus. The 
stones cast by Deucalion produced a stony race. The Myrmidons were 
ants (Murmekes) changed to men. The brazen race are made of the 
wood of the spear-handle ; they therefore die fighting, and perish by 
each other's hands. If the Homeric hero slays fifty men, who are 
lying in ambush for him, the Pindaric chief takes a city by himself. 3 
Yet Pindar was a poet of deep religious feeling, domestic, as well as 
public ; so much so that he dedicated a shrine to the mother of the 
gods, near his own house at Thebes. 4 The all-absorbing nationality of 
Hellenic mythology, thus warmly coloured by the great Theban poet, 
is brought out in stronger relief by his own exalted moral sentiment 
and abstract powers of reflection. 

Another fertile source of varied novelty in the Grecian myths, Legendary 
was the great Pythian festival, where there was a keen struggle JJ^ d at 
to carry off the prize for sacred song. The imagination of the festivals, 
poet might soar aloft, might amplify acknowledged incident, might 
embellish legend which his memory had stored up in some remote 
region of his native land, provided the great outline of his subject, 
and the special characteristics of the acting hero or divinity, did 
not run counter to the received orthodox opinion. Indeed, with 
this limitation, so free to differ were the very founders of the Hellenic Varieties in 
mythology, that while Homer assigns to Zeus and Dione the M y thol °gy> 
parentage of Aphrodite, Hesiod attributes to the foam of the sea the 
genesis of that goddess. With Homer she is the consort of Hephaistos ; 
in the theogony of Hesiod she is united to Aglaia ; and instances of 
these early discrepancies might be greatly multiplied. Even the 
Eleusinian mysteries, by assuming a dramatised form, 5 would, following 
the analogy of the Greek tragic poets and Indian dramatists, effect con- 
siderable varieties in the old mystical text. But, taking a more com- 
prehensive view of Grecian mythologic sources, from a broader basis 
and more culminating point than even the Homeric or Orphic 
ground, it is clear that historical facts, unwritten, become legendary 
from the operation of time ; just as language itself has been undergoing Analogy of 
the process of mutation, so completely, as to conceal all but its great ^ndl^end. 
elements ; yet where, in fact, is a greater legend than language itself — 

1 The same appetencies are discernible in the Oriental character, and the same 
tendencies to harmonise causes and effects. A Persian writer, speaking of a 
musical instrument (the Kumanchu), observes : — " Silken strings are best adapted 
to the kumanchu of mulberry wood, from a supposed sympathy between that tree 
and the produce of the insect which feeds on its leaves." And Shemsheddin 
observes, that " if a musician should furnish the Barbut" (Jha^irov of the Greeks) 
" with strings of wolf's and sheep's intestines together, they would refuse to 
vibrate in concord, or indeed would give no sound at all." 

2 «, not, and pa^m, a breast. 3 Pind. Nem. iii. 34. 

4 Pausan. ix. 25 s 5 Clemens Alex. Protrept. p. 12. 



8 



ANALOGY OF LANGUAGE AND LEGEND. 



yet what is more historic ?* And this again leads us to consider the 
geographical position of Hellas, as another powerful source of form- 
ative mythology. In the march of civilization from east to west, she 
Greece 11 ° f s ^ 00< ^ near ty central ; whilst the vast lake which bathed her southern 
limb was the liquid path by which wealth and commerce flowed into 

1 Let the philologist compare the language of the laws of the twelve tables, 
with that of Livy ; and the first English ballad, in the reign of Henry II., with 
that of Cowper ; and the change, from the powerful element of time, is great. In 
the first instance, many of the vocables are more allied to the Celtic than to the 
Latin (vide Vallancey's Instit. of Celt. Gram. Pref. p. iii.) ; and in some instances, 
in those tables, they have died out in the former dialect to survive in the latter. 
Let us survey for a moment, in juxtaposition, the legend of Mythology and the 
legend of Language, and the result will be a metaphysical proof of their identity. 
We will take " Man," a compound of " Mind and Strength," and just in propor- 
tion as these two qualities were valued, just so shall we find him changing name, 
but maintaining identity, in the eastern or western world, till Mythology, Lan- 
guage, and Metaphysics, merge into one. We shall illustrate with the English 
character. 

MAN, 
the representative of 

MIND and STRENGTH. 

Thus considered, he was styled 
by the Indians .... Man 'ushya, 

and Man 'uja ; 

i. e. the son of Man ti, 



the holy ancestor of the 
human race.* 

With the Saxons he was . . Men 'ske : 

With their descendants he be- 
came Men 'sch. 

" To think" was expressed by 

the Indians Man 'a ; 

And the abstract principle was Man 'as. 

The Roman called this . . Men 's ; 

The German Mein 'd ; 

The Englishman .... Min 'd. 



As physically constituted, he was 
strong, and a warrior, and thus 

the Indians called him . . Vir 'a, 
from " Vlra," to be powerful. 

With the Romans he was . . Vir . 
With the Greeks, Her'os (early 

digamma) V'gr 'os. 

The female goddess-power . . H'er '5. 

The Roman domestic ruling-power H'er 'us. 

This the Germans called . - . H'err . 

The English S'ir . 

By the Indians a great warrior 

was styled S'ur 'a. 

War personified the Greeks called Ar 'es ; 

The Romans M'ar 's. 



In all these instances we see vocalic changes, prefixes, and postfixes, without 
affecting the main signification of the primitive elements ; and, by placing in 
juxtaposition these two elements, we have the Eoman deity Min-vira, or, by 
metathesis, Minerva (as in Athene and the Egyptian Neith), the old Etruscan 
form of which was " Minfra," a strong corroborating proof of its origin. 

Now, Counsel, or Thought, was by the Indian styled " Meti ;" by the Greek 
Metis, which Zeus is declared by mythology to have swallowed, and to have 
reproduced under the form of Athene (the Eoman Minerva), the decided type of 
war and counsel. Thus, in the case of four deities, Minerva, Ares, Mars, and 
Metis, we have seen Mythology and Language equally legendary. Again, Mind 
in action produces Memory, called by the Greeks Mnem' e, by the Eomans 
Mem 'oria. It also gave birth to " Opinion," or signification, which the Germans 
called Mein 'ung, and the English " Mean 'ing." Advice also sprang from it, and 
was called by the Eomans Mon 'itum ; and " Eeverence," a title applied to holy 
men or Indian saints, whom that people called Mun 'e (from Man 'a, to know, or 
revere). Madness (the Sanscrit is "mad") was another of its progeny, and was 
denominated by the Greek " Man 'ia ;" with whom, also, oracular frenzy, or 
prophesy, was Man 'teia. Ares and M 'ars were the Italian and French G 'uerr-'a-'e, 



* " Manaso nama purvo apivisrii to vai Maharshibhi," i. e. the first being is styled " Ma- 
naso," or intellectual, and is so celebrated by great sages. (Mahabharatha.) 



INFLUENCE OF SCENERY. 



9 



her bosom. As related to the great communities of high antiquity, 
however, she" was still but young and ignorant. The vast sacerdo- 
collegiate establishments of Egypt, India, Babylon, and Phoenicia were 
in full national vigour, while the Theocracy of the Israelites had 
become redoubtable in their adopted land. The converging influences External 
of these religious organizations acted upon Hellas as a common centre, Heiias. up ° n 
through the medium of commerce and colonization ; a medium so 
powerful that even the most ignorant mariner could not fail to intro- 
duce more or less of the religious system of his native land ; 1 much 
more any systematised emigration into Greece. Another cause tending 
to increase not the legend only but the excellence of free Hellas, was 
the variety of its tribes, and the varying characteristics of its provinces. 
Each community had its own peculiar local divinities, whose worship Effect of 
was celebrated in conformity with the peculiar ideas suggested by locality, 
descent, the habits of the tribe and the influence of their local scenery, 
of which in Greece nature displayed the greatest variety in her richest 
type. The noble grandeur of Olympus ; the fertile plains of Thessaly ; 
the gloomy recesses of the rock-crowned Pytho, and the rich variety 
of aspect presented by her coasts ; these, and a thousand other causes, 
tended to swell the romantic harmony of legendary song ; and just as 
Europe in the middle ages had its patron saints, so was there in Greece 
a favourite deity for each particular province ; whilst the great emigra- Religious 
tion to the coast of Asia Minor enhanced the copiousness of their f£^ r ° f tion 
religious rites, by engrafting on their legend much of the frenzied 
excitement of the Asiatic race. 

These combined causes, acting upon the vivid imagination of the Effects on 
Greek, produced a deep veneration for the gods of his country, mani- ^tom 

and the Saxon tribes called themselves Ger-men, or war-men. Again, by another 

prefix, we are led to the latter compound of Minerva's title : — ■ 

The Greeks styled a man a' ner 

The Indians nar 'ah 

The Persians (a male) nar 

Strength they called ner u 

With the Romans it was metaphorically . . . nerv us 

Whence, without change Minerva. 

We shall conclude our remarks by illustrating an historical term, on the same 
principles on which we have illustrated a mythological term : — 

In the Sanscrit we have ....... G'na 

To know. — In the Greek G'no 'eo 

In the English K'now 

In the Saxon C'unna n ; 

where it now signifies 11 to be able," as well as " to know," (Ger kennen) ; hence, 
Saxon, " Cyn 'ing," "being able, being powerful" (to know,} contracted Cyn'g ; 
and English, " King," the representative of power. It still subsists in the French 
Conn 'aissance, in which language the phrase " savoir nager," is equivalent to 
" Pouvoir nager ;" so that, from the legend of Minerva and from an historical 
title, we return to the old axiom, that " knowledge is power." 
1 Jonah, chap. i. ver. 6 — 8, 11. 



10 



PERSONALITY OF GREEK DEITIES. 



fested in those systematised Festivals, Mysteries, Oracles, and Games, 
which were participated in by the entire Greek people. We proceed 
Greek to notice these festivals with a brevity consistent with our limits. We 
personal ' cannot, as some German scholars have done, rationalise the Hellenic 
agencies. religious system, inferring that Jupiter designates the iEther; Juno 
the Atmosphere, &c. Any such conventional arrangement, as a 
system, might have suited the sacerdotal machinery of an organized 
priesthood, but it would have lost life, and spirit, and personality in 
the eyes of the sensitive Greek, could he for a moment have compre- 
hended so cold a system. He believed in the individuality of his 
diversified gods. He believed in the power of the gods to give per- 
sonality to every conception. Even the very cloud which Jupiter 
sends to deceive Ixion is fitted with human shape and every accessory 
of life. So were the phantoms in Homer's battle-field, especially the 
eidolon of Deiphobus in Hector's last fight. There is no such a thing 
as an abstract impersonality in the Hellenic Mythology ; — Nux and 
Oneiros (Night and Dream) are as much persons as Apollo and 
Artemis. 



CHAPTER II. 



ORACLES, MYSTERIES, FESTIVALS, AND NATIONAL GAMES OF THE 
EARLY GREEKS, 

SECTION I. THE ORACLES. 

The Oracles of the Greeks, established in various localities, were The Oracles, 
dedicated to Heroes as well as to Gods ; among the latter, the 
Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was most celebrated. 

From the foot of Parnassus, Delphi sloped forward in a semi- position of 
circular declivity, a theatre moulded by Nature's mighty hand : the Del P hl - 
Temple of Apollo stood at its summit. The shrine of Delphi was 
considered the centre of the earth, and was marked by an elliptical 
stone. Hard by was the oracular chasm, whence arose the prophetic 
vapour, believed to issue from the well of Cassotis. In the inner- 



12 



THE ORACLE OF DELPHI. 



The Pythia 
unmarried. 



most sanctuary of the god, opposite to the golden statue of Apollo, 
rhe Pythia. the eternal fire burnt upon the altar. The Pythia, or Priestess of 
Apollo, led into the temple by the 
prophetess, took her place over the 
chasm, seated upon a high tripod, 
where, affected by the fumes of the 
ascending smoke, she uttered inco- 
herent sounds, which were con- 
sidered to be the revelations of 
Apollo. These were carefully noted 
by the prophetess, and then com- 
municated to the applicants. 1 After 
once entering on the sacerdotal 
duties of the god, the Pythia was 
never allowed to marry. A single 
priestess sufficed, till the increasing- 
numbers of those who came to con- 
sult the Oracle, demanded additional 
aid. Three Pythias were then ap- 
pointed ; two taking their seats on 
the tripod alternately, while the 
third was in readiness to supply 
the place of either of the others, 
should this be required. The natal 
day of Apollo was that on which 
the Oracle was at first consulted ; 
but as the applicants became more 

numerous, certain days in each were set apart. The order of con- 
sultation was determined by lot, 2 excepting in the case of those who 
had received the right of the 7rpofxavreia, or "first prophecy" 
Those who consulted the Oracle, in addition to the sacrifice of an 
ox, sheep, or goat, had to pay a stated fee, excepting when the 
consultation was " tribute free" — areXeia. After bathing in the 
Castalian spring, and fasting for three days, the Pythia, attired 
in the most simple vestments, ascended the sacred tripod. 
The oracular answers were in a metrical form, and usually in 
the Ionic dialect, though, after the time of Theopompus, prose 
was substituted, and the Doric dialect as spoken at Delphi. To 
superintend the Oracle, there were five priests taken from five 
aristocratic families of Delphi, who traced their origin to Deucalion. 
These " Holy men " (oVtoi) held their offices for fife, managing 
and controlling, the sacrificial arrangements and the affairs of the 
sanctuary. The early fondness of the Greeks for supporting legend 
by etymology, which we have already noticed, is observable in 
the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which derives the name Pytho, 



Days for 
consulting 
the Oracle. 




Payment of 
Fees. 



Number of 
Priests. 



1 Diod. xvi. 26. 



2 Eurip. Ion, 422. 



THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 



13 



havino- the Prophetic 
mj & power of the 
locality. 



from the serpent slain by Apollo, which he left there to rot 
(jcvQeaQaC). 

The prophetic power of this particular locality in Delphi was Discovery of 
discovered, it is said, by some shepherds, whose sheep 
approached this spot, were thrown into 
convulsions, 1 while individuals who 
visited the hallowed chasm were gifted 
with the power of prophecy, a dis- 
covery of such importance as to cause 
the building of the Temple. 

Though the ambiguity of the Del- 
phic Oracle was repulsive, it is certain 
that, in its best days, it exercised a 
more powerful sway than any other re- 
ligious institution of antiquity. Politics, 
religion, public and private life, the 
founding of colonies, and disputes be- 
tween these and the metropolis, were 
referred to the decision of the Oracle, 
whose answers always tended to pro- 
mote the maintenance and increase of religious establishments. Its 
influence rapidly declined with the Athenians in the Peloponnesian Declines, and 
war, when its partiality to Sparta became evident. 2 It continued 1S abohshed - 
to subsist, however, till the time of Theodosius, when it was entirely 
abolished. 3 




SECTION II. THE MYSTERIES. 

The influence of mythological legend, powerful in the Oracle, was Mysteries, 
not less powerful in the Mysteries of Hellas, particularly in those of 
Eleusis, the holiest and most venerable. Their origin is a subject of Origin of the 
tradition, so varied, that we shall not venture to touch upon it. Mysteries" 
Their extreme antiquity is certain. We learn from Thucydides, 4 
that in the reign of Erectheus, the Eleusinians, being defeated by the 
Athenians, yielded to their supremacy, with the exception of the 
Mysteries (teXetcii). The descendants of Eumolpus, the Ceryces, 
and the daughters of Celeus, King of Eleusis, were, therefore, con- 
tinued in the superintendence of the sacred rites. The Eleusinian 

1 Plut. de Def. Orac. chap. xxii. 2 pi u t. Dem. 20. 

3 The other oracles of Apollo were, 1st, at Aboe, in Phocis ; 2nd, Ismenion, in 
Bceotia ; 3rd, at Hysise, on the Attic frontiers ; 4th, on the hill Ptoos, in the Theban 
territory ; 5th, in the Lyceum at Argos ; 6th, at Tegaea, in Boeotia ; 7th, at Orobia, 
in Eubcea ; 8th, on the Acropolis of Argos ; 9th, Oracle of the Branchydae ; 10th, 
of Eutresis, near Leuctra ; 11th, at Claros, in the Colophonian territory; 12th, 
at Grynsea, in the territory of the Myrinaeans ; 13th, at Abdera ; 14th, of Apollo 
Gounapaeus, in Lesbos; 15th, the Sarpedonian Apollo, in Lycia ; 16th, at Tel- 
messus; 17th, in Delos ; 18th, at Patara; 19th, at Mallos, in Cilicia; 20th, at 
Hybla, in Caria ; 21st, at Hiera Come, on the Maeander. 4 ii. 15. 



14 



THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 



Greater and Mysteries were divided into the Greater and Lesser ; into the latter 
Mysteries. anY Greek might be initiated. They were celebrated annually in the 
month Anthesterion ; 1 and the initiated, who were styled Mystge, had 




When held. 



to undergo the probation of a year previous to an admission to the 
Greater Mysteries. The Mystagogus, or superintendent of sacred 
rites, 2 administered to them an oath of secrecy, communicating like- 
wise instructions calculated to convey a more easy comprehension of 
the Great Eleusinian Mysteries. These were held annually in the 
month Boedromion, 3 during nine successive days (from the 15th to 
the 23rd). On the opening day, vast crowds of foreigners thronged 
into Athens, to witness this grand national solemnity, 4 where also 
the communicants of the Lesser Eleusinia had assembled. The 
second day was specially set apart for purification ; and, accordingly, 
the solemn procession repaired to the sea-coast, where this intro- 
Orderofthe ductory rite was performed. 5 This was succeeded by a day of 
Mysteries. f as ting, towards the evening of which the initiated partook of a slender 
meal, consisting of cakes of sesame and honey. On the fourth day 
ensued a grand procession, in which a basket, containing poppy seeds 
and pomegranates, was carried on a waggon, followed by women 
The fifth day. holding small mystic cases. The fifth, or torch-day, 6 was one of 
much importance. Headed by the Aadov'^oQ, or chief torch-bearer, 
the procession with flaming torches repaired in the evening to the 
temple of Demeter at Eleusis. The initiated, clad in purple robes, 
and decked with crowns of myrtle, passed through the southern 
portico in pairs conducted by the priests. The sixth day was ushered 
in by a grand procession carrying the statue of Iakchus, the son of 
Demeter. On the brows of the statue rested a garland of myrtle ; a 

1 End of February and beginning of March. 2 Tlpotp^ryii, or ""Upotpuvrris. 

3 Latter half of September and beginning of October. 

4 Philost. Vit. Apoll. iv. 6. 5 Polysem. iii. 11. 
6 'H tuv Xxf/yTTu^m '/iftipa.. 



The sixth 
day. 



THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 



15 



torch was in his hand ; while the sacred road, thronged by multitudes 
of spectators, re-echoed with songs and shouts of joy. We shall here 
avail ourselves of the eloquent description by a celebrated classical 
scholar 1 of the close of this august ceremony. 2 " The initiated The 
were admitted for the first time to the full enjoyment of the admission of 

novicisitcs. 

privileges which the mysteries conferred. Having gone through the 
previous rites of fasting and of purification, they were clad in the 
sacred fawn-skin, and led at eventide into the sacred vestibule of the 
Temple. The doors of the building itself were as yet closed. Then 
the profane were commanded by the priests with a loud voice to 
retire. The worshippers remained alone. Presently strange sounds Visions seen, 
were heard ; dreadful apparitions as of dying men were seen ; light- 
nings flashed through the thick darkness in which they were 
enveloped, and thunders rolled around them ; light and gloom suc- 
ceeded each other with rapid interchange. After these preliminaries, 
at length the doors of the Temple were thrown open. Its interior view of the 
shone with one blaze of light. The votaries were then led to the S^Tempie. 
feet of the statue of the goddess, who was clad in the most gorgeous 
attire ; in her presence their temples were encircled by the hands of 
the priests with the sacred wreath of myrtle, which was intended to Emblematic 
direct their thoughts to the myrtle groves of the blessed in those worshl P- 
happy isles to which they would be carried after death ; their eyes 
were dazzled with the most beautiful and vivid colours, and their ears 
charmed with the most melodious sounds, both rendered more 
enchanting by their contrast with those fearful and ghastly objects, 
which had just before been offered to their senses. They were now 
admitted to behold visions of the Creation of the Universe, to see the 
workings of that divine agency, by which the machine of the world 
was regulated and controlled, to contemplate the state of society Typical 
which prevailed upon the earth before the visit of Ceres to Attica, and revelatlons 
to witness the introduction of agriculture, of sound laws and of gentle 
manners, which followed the steps of that goddess ; to recognise the 
immortality of the soul, as typified by the concealment of corn sown 
in the earth, by its revival in the green blade, and by its full ripeness 
in the golden harvest ; or as the same idea was otherwise expressed of religious 
by the abduction of Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, to the regions m y stenes - 
of darkness, in order that she might pass six months beneath the 
earth, and then arise again to spend an equal time in the realms of 
light and joy. Above all, they were invited to view the spectacle of 
that happy state, in which they themselves, the initiated, were to exist 
hereafter. These revelations contained the greatest happiness to 
which man could aspire in this life, and assured him of such bliss as 
nothing could exceed or diminish in the next." 

1 Wordsworth's Pictorial Greece, p. 83. 

2 The ninth and last day was called 5rX^«x« a '> fr° m a peculiar species of vessel 
so called. These were filled with wine or water; thrown from one towards the 
east, from the other towards the west. 



16 



THE ISTHMIAN GAMES. 



Organized In the complex apparatus and sacerdotal organization of this 
louTSof the solemnity, we at once discern the foreign influences previously noticed ; 
Eieusinian while in the Isthmsean, Nemsean, Olympian, and Pythian games, we 
as clearly perceive the working of the true Grecian legend, simple and 
incomplex. 



Mysteries. 



Isthmian 
Games. 



Temple of 
1'oseidSn. 



Athenian 
importance 
at Corinth. 



Prize of 
victory. 



Pecuniary 
reward. 




SECTION III. THE ISTHMIAN GAMES. 

The Isthmian Games (so called from the Corinthian Isthmus, the 
place of celebration), constituted a festival in honour of Poseidon, or 
Neptune. The site of this solemnity was well calculated to carry out 
the illusion of the legend 
attached to it. Between 
the (Enean hills and the 
shore of the Saronic Gulf 
rose the stately temple of 
Poseidon; while a sta- 
dium and theatre of white 
marble, deep groves of 
pine trees, and a long 
avenue of statues — the re- 
presentatives of the Isth- 
mian victors — conferred additional magnificence on this arena of 
Hellenic vigour. To this great national pageant the Athenians were 
wont to repair with much pomp, crossing the Saronic Gulf in the 
Theoric or sacred vessel, whilst the privilege of an honorary position 1 
at the games, was granted them by the Corinthians ; and so powerful 
was the influence of religious feeling, that even in time of war with 
Athens, her citizens were invited to attend under the pledge of a 
sacred truce. In nothing perhaps is the innate energy of the Hellenic 
character more strongly evinced, than the adaptation to vigorous and 
manly exercises of rites which were once of a mysterious cast — of such 
a nature were the originals of the Isthmian games. 2 Theseus, who, 
following certain legends, was the son of Poseidon, appears to have 
instituted these festivals, in a species of rival imitation of Heracles the 
founder of the Olympian games; and they were, after this period, 
celebrated in honour of Poseidon. This solemnity was characterised 
with the same festivity and rejoicing, which accompanied the corre- 
sponding national institutes of Hellas, embracing the whole range of 
gymnastic and intellectual competition, to which latter distinction 
women also were admitted. 3 The prize of victory was simple — a 
wreath of pine-leaves, subsequently of ivy, and again a garland of pine 
graced the brows of the conqueror, who not only became the object of 
admiration, but conferred the splendour of his renown on his native 
city ; whilst the Athenian victor received, from the public treasury, a 



Plut. Thes. 25. 



Plut. Imp. v. 2. 



THE NEMjEAN GAMES. 



17 



magnificent reward, 1 and triumphal odes swelled the glory of his Pecuniary 
achievement. These magnificent pageants were suspended during the JjSJjJfcj? 
sway of the Cypselides at Corinth, a period of seventy years ; 2 but it the isthmian 
was only to attain a still greater splendour and regularity, becoming, Games * 
B.C. 584 (49th Olympiad), a triennial festival, occurring the first and 
third year of every Olympiad. The triennial order of celebration 
continued regularly to a very late period. In the Isthmian solemnities 
B.C. 228, the Komans were privileged to bear a part. 3 Here, too, the 
public proclamation of the independence of Greece, was made by 
Flaminius. The Corinthians were stripped of the dignity of presidents 
of these noble games on the fall of their city before the Roman power 
B.C. 146, when the Sicyonians were privileged to assume their position. 
Under the fostering hand of Julius Csesar, the city of Corinth rose 
from its ruins, and the Corinthians once more resumed their natural 
position as presidents of the games, which continued till the general 
establishment of Christianity 4 in the Roman Empire. Athletic exercises, 
the Pancratium, wrestling, horse and chariot races, 5 poetical and musical 
contests, were the distinguishing features of these games. That female 
intellect was not inefficiently represented at the Isthmia, is apparent 
from the circumstance of the victory gained by Aristomache, the 
poetess, who, in token of her acknowledgment, presented to the treasury 
at Sicyon, the appropriate souvenir of a golden book. 6 The dignified 
position of a victor at these games, is evidenced by the splendid 
Triumphal Odes 7 of Pindar. 8 



SECTION IV. — THE NEMJEAN GAMES. 

Nemsea, near Cleonse, in Argolis, gave a title to the celebrated Nemaean 
Nemaean Games, instituted, we are told, in legendary song, by the Games - 
Seven against Thebes. These warriors, oppressed with thirst, met Their origin. 
Hypsipile, then carrying Ophethes, the child of Eurydice. Hastening 
to point out to these chiefs the nearest spring, she left the child in a 
meadow. On the return of the Seven, they saw the infant lying 
dead, having been slain by a dragon. This monster they slew, and 
instituted funereal games, which were celebrated every third year. 
The origin of the Nemaean Games is, by other legends, attributed to 
Heracles, by whose instrumentality they were celebrated in honour of 
Zeus, whom Pindar notices as the patron divinity. 9 These games, 
though open to all the Greeks, were primarily of a warlike nature, 
nor could any one participate in them, save chiefs of approved 
prowess, or their sons. This grand festival was celebrated in a grove Locality . 
between Phlius and Cleonse. It embraced wrestling, chariot-racing, 

» Prut. Sol. 23. 2 Solinus, c. xii. 3 Polyb. ii. 13. 

* Suet. Ner. 24. » Paus. v. 2, § 4. 6 Plut. Symp. v. 2. 

7 'Ea-ivixia. 8 Vide Krause, "Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien," p. 165. 
9 Nem. iii. 114. 

[h. G.j ' C 



1 8 THE NEM2EAN GAMES. 

Nature of running in armour in the stadium, 1 bow-shooting, the discus, throwing 
the Games. ^ S p ear? an( j mU sical rivalry. 2 As at the Isthmian Games, we find 





Change of 
prize. 



Presidency 
of the 

Nema>an 
Games. 



a change of the prize taking place ; first, a wreath of olive branches, 
then a chaplet of parsley, although the period of this change is not 
ascertained. At various times, Cleonae, Argos, and Corinth, gave pre- 
sidents to these games, in which the first people seem to have obtained 
some superior celebrity, since these festivals were sometimes styled 
" The Cleonian games." The season of the year in which these festivals 
were held, is the subject of discrepant accounts ; though from a con- 
siderable authority 3 we learn that they were held on the 12th of the 
month Panemus. 4 Pausanias 5 mentions a celebration of these games 
in winter, which, however, he distinguishes from the summer festivals. 
In the same local spirit which actuated Delphi, Argolis began to 
adopt these games, as a chronological era, about the date of the battle 
of Marathon. 

The Nemasan Games are said to have been revived B.C. 567, and 
were thenceforward celebrated twice in every Olympiad. Corinth, 
Cleonae, and Argos continued to have the presidency of these games, till, 
in B.C. 208, the latter people resigned the honorary post to Philip of 
Macedon. 6 This festival gradually declined till the time of the Emperor 
Hadrian, soon after which it appears to have been discontinued. 7 

1 Paus. ii. 15, § 2. 2 Plut. Philop. ii. 3 Schol. ad Pind. 

4 The latter half of September, and beginning of October. 

5 Paus. ii. 15. 6 Polyb. x. 26. 

7 For further particulars see fechomann, Plut. Ag. et Cleom. 



THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 



19 



SECTION V. THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 

The most completely national of the Hellenic games were the The Olympic 
Olympic, celebrated in honour of the Olympian Zeus. They were Games - 
also the most legendary. The Idsean 
Heracles, the eera of Cronos, the 
Curetes, Rhea and the new-born 
Zeus, helped to satisfy the antiquarian 
aspirations of legendary Olympia; 
while Pelops, Heracles the son of 
Amphitryon, and a long train of 
heroic presidents, dignified its tra- 
ditions. The true historic Olympiad, 
which sprang from these legends, is 
placed B.C. 776, the date of the 
victory of Corcebus, the commence- 
ment also of historical Greece. This 
great national festival, though at first 
confined to the Peloponnesus, became 
at length so renowned, as to embrace the whole Hellenic race, who, 
whether as colonists of Asia, Africa, or Europe, or resident in the Right of 
mother-country, were entitled to enter the lists, provided they were at misslon * 
of pure Hellenic origin ; those alone excepted who had been guilty of 
a breach of the divine laws, or had been stigmatised with disgrace by 
their respective states. The spectators who thronged to this festival 
were very numerous, since even barbarians might be present ; while 
another strong reason for the vast influx of visitors, was the fact of 
its being the grand rendezvous for commercial transactions from the Commercial 
most distant countries. 1 The rival splendour of the Theoroi, or deputies rendezvous - 
from the various Hellenic states, the dignity of their position, and the 
magnificence of their offerings, formed likewise powerful attractions. 
The site of these noble games was the beautiful valley of Olympia, Site of the 
about three miles in length, and one in breadth ; its southern boundary 2^2!° 
the broad stream of the Alpheius, whilst the eastern and western 
boundaries of this verdant arena of Hellas are marked by the streams 
Cladeus and Harpinates. An observer taking post upon Mount 
Cronius, which sloped down to the Olympic valley, could survey the 
ten treasuries reared by various Hellenic states, embellished by mag- 
nificent offerings, and statues of exquisite workmanship ; the Stadium, The stadium, 
situated in a declivity of Mount Cronius ; the Hippodrome, stretching 
from west to east ; and the Altis, or sacred grove of Zeus, containing 
the most glorious objects of Olympia. Near the centre of this hallowed Temple of 
spot rose the temple of the Olympian Zeus, a Doric edifice 230 feet Zeus * 
in length, 95 in breadth, and 68 in height. Within this magnificent statue of 
fabric was enthroned the colossal statue of Zeus, formed of ivory and eus " 

1 Just. xiii. 5. See also Burckhardt's account of the pilgrims and business 

carried on at Medina. 




20 



THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 



But one 

female 

admitted. 



Females 
permitted to 
send subjects 
for com- 
petition. 



Interval of 
the Olympic 
Games. 

Their nature. 



gold — a combination so splendid and harmonious, so dazzling and 
glorious in its aspect, as to produce the effect of a vision of that 
immortal deity. 

The western facade of the Hippodrome was formed by a portico, 
through which the spectator reached the barriers whence the chariots 
started. With the exception of the priestess of Demeter, who sat on 
a marble altar facing the Hellanodicas, or judges of the games, no 
woman was permitted to be present : the penalty for transgression was 
a frightful death by being hurled from the Typaean rock. Though 
thus restricted from personal attendance, the female sex was permitted 
to compete by sending chariots to the races. 1 As this grand national 
festival was under the immediate patronage of the Olympian Zeus, the 
opening day was celebrated by initiatory sacrifices, the chief of which 
were offered by the Eleans ; whilst the victors in the games, the 
The5roi, and not a few private individuals, were liberal in their offer- 
ings to the various divinities of Greece. 

Four years elapsed between each celebration of this gorgeous 
pageant, which was varied by every possible display of physical ex- 
cellence. The exhibition 
consisted of the chariot 
race, with four horses, 2 
the foot-race, 3 and the 
foot-race with the equip- 
ments of the Hoplites or 
heavy-armed ; wrestling, 
boxing, the Pentathlon, 
or the five-fold exercises ; 
the Pancratium, a com- 
bination of boxing and wrestling, and the contests of the trumpeters : 
and all these, whether relating to men, to boys, or to horses, were in 
great variety. The duty of the Hellanodicce, or judges of the games, 

was to maintain the laws 
connected with the games, 
to detennine and allot the 
prizes : nor was this a duty 
of easy acquisition ; for, 
after being chosen by lot 
from the body of the Eleans, 
they had to undergo a pre- 
liminary instruction by the 





1 The sister of Agesilaus was the first woman whose horse gained the prize at 
the Olympic games, Paus. iii. 8. 

2 The varieties were, — the horse-race with mares (xaXvrn) ; with two full-grown 
horses ; with two foals ; with four foals ; with mules ; horse-race with mares ; 
with foals. 

3 Varieties of foot-race : — the double traverse of the stadium Q'.avXo;) ; a still 
longer course (the lox^os) ; and a foot-race for boys. 



THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 



21 



guardians of privilege. 1 The position of the HellanodicaB was highly Rank of the 
dignified ; they were clothed in a purple robe ; and in the Stadium, to HellanodlC3e - 
which they had a secret entrance, there were seats expressly appro- 
priated to them : the aXurat, a species of police, likewise served 
to enforce the commands of the Hellanodicae ; and the only appeal 
from their decision lay to the senate of Elea. 2 The lot decided 
the place of the competitors, whose name 
and country were proclaimed by a herald. 
A wreath of wild olive, from a sacred olive 
tree 3 in the hallowed grove of Altis, cut 
with a golden sickle, was the prize of the 
victor ; his name, that of his father, and of 
his native country, were proclaimed by a 
herald before assembled Greece ; his statue 
was placed in the sacred grove, and on re- 
turning to his own city, he entered its gates 
in triumphal procession. 

Nor were the splendours of victory the 
only stimulant to the Hellenic spirit. The 
vast concourse, both of Greeks and fo- 
reigners, who assembled at this grand 

festival, presented the most favourable opportunity of giving a wide Publication 
renown to literary and artistic works, which, though they cannot works!" 3 ' 





be considered as forming a part of the festival, gave the most 
powerful impulse to emulative genius, of which the orators Lysias, 
Anaximenes, and Prodicus of Ceos, nobly availed themselves. 
During the sway of imperial Rome, the Olympic Games were 
celebrated with a magnificence worthy of the rulers of the world, 



2 Paus. vi. 24. 3 Ibid# v> 7, 



22 



THE PYTHIAN GAMES. 



Olympic while the victors were rewarded with corresponding splendour. 1 At 
become length this glorious festival of Hellas, became extinct in the reign of 
extinct. Theodosius, A. d. 394. If we contemplate the benefits derived by- 
Greece from this unparalleled display of physical and intellectual ex- 
cellence, we shall at once perceive that no institution could be more 
favourable to her national existence. While her variety of tribes, soil, 
dialect, and locality, tended naturally to disunion, these grand periodical 
Nationaliz- assemblies evoked a religious and a federative spirit, powerful to 
of g Greek enCe w ^ nstan( ^ foreign oppression ; whilst the severe training required to 
games? secure the palm of victory, gave to the poet, painter, and sculptor, the 
highest models of physical excellence, and to the nation the confidence 
of practised hardihood. Nor were these tendencies of a transitory 
Long nature ; uninterruptedly, for more than one thousand years, their con- 
continuance, tinued agency was felt and acknowledged. 



SECTION VI. — THE PYTHIAN GAMES. 

Pythian As the great Olympic Games were more directly under the religious 

patronage of Zeus, so also the legend of Pytho and the serpent gave 
rise to the Pythian festival in honor of Apollo. 2 These games, 
originally a religious eulogy on that deity, in connection with the 
oracle at Delphi, and afterwards expanding into a musical contest with 
the accompaniment of the lyre and flute, embraced in the sequel gym- 
nastic and equestrian contests, though the musical and artistic exhi- 
bitions ever remained the most prominent feature. Until the 48th 
Olympiad, these games had been celebrated at the end of every eight 
years ; at this date, however, they were ranged after the Olympian 
Celebrated in model, and took place at the end of every fourth year. Each Pythiad 
the sprmg. wag ce i eD rated in the spring, and continued for several days, though 
the exact number is not known. 3 The Crissaean plain was the site of 
this magnificent festival, where were combined facilities well calculated 
to carry out its comprehensive plan. A stadium of at least one thou- 
sand feet in length, 4 an hippodromus or race-course, and a theatre for 
musical contests, gave ample scope to the varied physical and intel- 
lectual accomplishments of the Grecian ; nor is there much doubt that 
a prytaneum and gymnasium, existed here, as at Olympia, though we 
have no positive record of them. We have no evidence to prove that 
gymnastic exercises were in use at this festival, previous to B.C. 592 
(Olympiad 47th), at which time they were not in existence at Delphi. 
Though the Delphians had naturally been the Agnothetse. or presiding 
judges at these games, in the third year of the 48th Olympiad, B.C. 
590, the Amphictyons, subsequent to the Crisssean war, obtained the 

! 1 For farther information on this subject see Dissen, " TJeber die Anordnung 
der Olympischen Spiele," in his " Kleine Schriften ;" Corsini's " Dissertat. 
Agonisticae and Krause, " Olympia, oder Darstell. d. grossen Olymp. Spiele." 

2 Athen. xv. p. 107 : Schol. Arg. ad Pind. Pyth. 3 Soph. Elect. 690. 

4 Cens. de Die Nat. 



THE PYTHIAN GAMES. 



23 



presidency. Hence these festivals are sometimes styled " Amphic- Pythian 
tyonic Games." 1 From the third year of the 48th Olympiad, these Glmes - 
Pythiads aspired to the dignity of forming an sera, somewhat similar 
to that bestowed by the Olympiads ; and the first Pythian games, 
under the presidency of the Amphictyons, was styled the first Pythiad. 
The chariot-race does not appear to have been introduced till the 2nd 
Pythiad; 2 in the first the victors received substantial rewards 3 as their 
prize ; in the second, a wreath became the established recompense. A 
few games which had not been practised at Olympia, were introduced in 
the second Pythiad, such as the longer and shorter foot-race for boys. 4 
The Tethrippos, or four-horse chariot race, was introduced at the first 
Pythiad ; in the 53rd Pythiad, the chariot race with four foals ; in the 
69th, the chariot race with two foals ; whilst in the 48th, the 
" Sunoridos Dromos," or the chariot race with two full-grown horses, 
appeared for the first time on the Crisssean plain, and boys first entered 
the severe struggle of the Pancratium, in the 63rd Pythiad. These 
games continued to assume a character of increasing life and animation, 
for the Auhdia, or flute-playing, of the first Pythiad, was ever after 
omitted, as it had accompanied elegies and dirges only; now con- 
sidered too melancholy for this festival. The most prominent part Chief per- 
played by performers in this festivity on the flute and lyre was formances - 




highly imitative, reproductive of legend, and singularly operatic in the 
modern sense of the term, being a musical description of Apollo's 
conflict with and victory over the dragon. 5 Paintings, sculptures, 
works of art, tragedy, and historical recitations, held out in this festival 
their noblest attractions to the ingenious Greek. Hither, previous to 
the actual celebration of the games, the States connected with the 
Delphian Amphictyony, despatched their deputies or Theoroi, whilst 

1 Heliod. Mih. iv. 1. 2 Paus. x. 7. 3 X^ara; Schol. ad Pind. 

4 The Aokixo; and the AiavXos. Paus. 1. c. 5 Styled the " vopos '7ru6lKos. ,, 



24 



THE PYTHIAN GAMES. 



ff the dour tnose °^ -Athens were particularly splendid and brilliant. The super- 
Athenian intendents of this popular festival, occupying the corresponding position 
Theoroi. ^o the Hellanodicae in the Olympic Games, were styled Epimeletai. 
Duty of the These officers, whose number is not ascertained, were empowered to 
Epimeletai. U p] 10 i ( j or ^ eYi by the assistance of the Mastigophorce (whip-bearers), 
whose duty exactly quadrated with that of the aAvVcu at Olympia. 1 
Prizes. The prize at the Pythian Games, from the second Pythiad, was such as 
might be anticipated from legendary tendency, being a chaplet of 
laurel, to which was added, as in the Olympic Games, the palm- 
branch, the symbol of victory ; the conqueror likewise possessed the 
privilege of having his statue erected in the Crissean plain. 2 

Though we possess no authorised accounts of the final cessation of 
Probable the Pythian Games, there is every probability that their career closed 
Pythian simultaneously with that of the Olympic Games, a.d. 394. So 
Games. powerful was the early influence of these national festivals, that nume- 
rous cities and districts in Greece, Italy, Asia, and Africa, had their 
imitative pageants under the title of Olympian and Pythian Games. 3 

Summary of We have then contemplated a mythology, which though springing 
legendary nd from the multiform sources of native devotion, the religious dogmas 
sources. f Egypt, India, Babylon and Phoenicia, — the relics of Hebrew History, 
the writings of Homer and Hesiod, the Cyclic Poets, and the Logo- 
graphers, the amplifications of prize poets at the Pythian Games, of 
lyric and dramatic writers, the sacred drama of Eleusis, and the 
systematised. devotional graft of the Asiatic emigration, — was yet systematised by 
the Greeks in such a way as to produce a Practice, political, religious 
and festive, harmonising with their feelings, commanding their faith, 
and encouraging nationality. If w r e would seek beyond the mere circle 
of Hellenic life, for a vitality that actuates and shall continue to 
actuate, the fairest forms of art and the noblest creations of intellect, 
such shall we recognise coextensive with the realms of civilization and 
the freedom of humanity. The sublime interpretation of nature, that 
characterised the freeman of Greece, bequeathed to the poet, the statu- 
ary, and the painter, an imperishable legacy of high and noble aspir- 
ations; while the physical powers of man, trained to the highest 
excellence, demonstrated the exalted harmony of mind and matter. If 
the Greek could not point to the marvellous triumphs of mechanic 
power or speed, he could feel justly proud of human powers that 
approached perfection ; and thus excited, the realization of the gran- 
deur of his country's gods, became an embodied principle of his exist- 
How Legend ence. To enter, therefore, upon the early history of Hellas, is to view 
Sewed. be i* 8 legend with the same eye of faith with which the Greek beheld it ; 

— to gaze upon its long line of heroes, as vital agencies of noble port 
and imposing form ; to behold the deity of the rocky Pytho, radiant 

1 Luc. ad indoct. 9. 2 Paus. vi. 15. 

3 For farther particulars, see Krause, " Die Pyth. iS'em. u. Isth." 



THE PYTHIAN GAMES. 



25 



with glory, to hear his prophetic voice, and to gaze upon the awful 
majesty of the " King of Gods and men " as realized by the immortal 
Phidias : — 

He speaks, and awful bends his sable brows ; 

Shakes his ambrosial locks, and gives the nod 

The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god ; 

High heaven with trembling the dread signal took, 

And all Olympus to the centre shook. Fope's Homer. 

With this we must be satisfied. And although in our investigations 
we shall elicit new light from doctrinal mythology by the application 
of philological science, and determine the local tendencies of an im- 
portant portion of the human race, we must at present have sufficient 
Hellenic faith to consider the great body of Grecian mythology as a 
species of latitudinarian romance, founded upon not a few important 
facts. Such on this ground are our only historical evidences. We 
look around in vain for other materials to reconstruct the temple of 
Truth. Time has sapped its foundations, and legendary faith must 
supply a fictitious basis. 



CHAPTER III. 



ORIENTAL SOURCES OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 



'O^ihg (jt,\v yoc(> rsXirus ffriplv xuridn^i, (povuv r a^2^e<r^a< 

Mou<ru.7o$ <r', \\a,xi<ru$ ti v'oituv xou 'f-ow 'Ho-lodos 

r»5j tgyeifftaS) xagrfav eo^a.;, oigorovs' o di fo7os"Ofttgo$ 

'Ato tov Tif^yiv xcti xXios so-%&v, TXr,v tov§ ', oti j££JJO"t' Wibatrxiv, 

'A^trccs, ra%u;, ovrXiffus ff.vb^uv . . . x. <r. X. 

Aristoph. San. 1030. 



Order and In these words are set forth, with tolerable accuracy, the main native 
Mythology. ™ tt en sources of Hellenic legend, in their order and objects, viz., 1st, 
The teaching of doctrinal mysteries, and the abstinence from animal 
food, by Orpheus : 2ndly, Medical and oracular lore, by Musaeus : 
3rdly, Husbandry, ploughing, and the adaptation of the seasons to the 
fruits of the earth, by Hesiod ; including, of course, the mythology 
contained in his two treatises : and, 4thly, The marshalling of armies, 
and the military achievements of heroes, by Homer. But as we have 
now access to the inferential authority of a philology, almost equal to 
the broad outlines of history, 1 the evidences of ancient monuments, and 
the light of comparative mythology, advantages not possessed by 
1 See Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik, &c. 



CHAOS, G^A, URANOS, THE CYCLOPES. 



27 



Aristophanes, a more simple division will subserve the purposes of 
historical truth. 

There are two main sources of Grecian written legend, viz., The Sources of 
Indo-Oollegiate theogonies, relics of which are found in the writings written 
of Orpheus and Hesiod : 2ndly, The Homeric poems. The first are }jr|^ r ^J r 
doctrinal and direct, and by their dogmatic form stand out in bold lstics. araC e 
contradistinction to the second, which are purely narrative and inven- 
tive, in which, if any doctrines appear, they are rather inferential than 
direct. In Hesiod, the earliest systematist of the Greek theogony, 1 we Artificial 
find the mythical cosmogony ranged upon a highly-artificial scale, §5od. 
though the detail is imperfectly carried out; some portions being 
highly elaborated by original system, others more crudely filled up by 
the poet's imagination. His mythological genesis opens with a gra- 
duated scale of gods, heroes, and men. With the first, faithful to his 
oriental model, he has grouped monstrous yet sentient agencies, pos- 
sessed of might surpassing the powers of man, yet participating in 
many of man's physical and mental endowments : of such a nature Mixed 
are the Gorgons, the Harpies, the Dragon of the Hesperides, Echidna, He^iod^and 
the semi-nymph and serpent, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, and the Centaurs, their 
whose primitive type we shall notice in its proper place. As it would chaiacter - 
be utterly beyond the scope of the present work to embrace the whole 
circle of mythologic creation, we shall here merely reproduce such 
great outlines, as may serve to give a general view of their form and 
dimension. 

The Greek mythical world, opens with the display of the resistless 
power of supreme intellect, in calming the grand crash, tumult, and 
confusion of opposing agencies, and in vindicating the supremacy of 
order ; and in this it coincides with the principles of the Indian cos- Coincidence 
mogony, between which and the Greek system there is, as we shall and^Greek^ 11 
demonstrate, more than an accidental uniformity. Hesiod has placed cosmogonies 
in the order of time, first Chaos, next Gaea, or the Earth, with the accidental, 
deep and gloomy Tartarus as her foundation. Then sprang into being 
Eros, or Love, the vanquisher of gods and men. Gaea then gave birth Gaea gives 
to Uranos, whom she afterwards married : their progeny was, the jjrailos 
Titan race, the Cyclopes, renowned for their manual skill in forging 
the thunderbolts of Zeus, and the three Hecatoncheires — the " Hun- 
dred-handed." Horrified by this tremendous brood, Uranos hid them 
in the cavities of the earth, whence he would not permit them to 
escape. Upon this, Gaea, who could find no room for them, and 
groaned beneath the pressure, conjured her offspring to avenge her, and 

1 Mr. Grote observes (Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 19, note), " That the Hesiodic 
theogony is referable to an age considerably later than the Homeric poems appears 
now to be the generally admitted opinion ; and the reasons for believing so are in 
my opinion satisfactory." In this opinion we concur only so far as respects the 
mere language of the poem. The didactic principles and great narrative outline of 
Hesiod are of an antiquity ages beyond the Homeric writings, being found in the 
Vishnu Purana, Ramayuna, and Mahabharata, with such changes as might be anti- 
cipated from traditional preservation. 



28 



CHRONOS, RHEA, ZEUS. 



Uranos 
dethroned, 
and Cronos 
and the 
Titans 
liberated. 



Progeny of 
Cronos and 
Rhea. 



Character of 

Zeus 

impressive. 



Uranos was at length dethroned. Cronos, and the rest of the Titans, 
now recovered their liberty, and became the dominant power. The 
Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes meanwhile continued in Tartarus, 
where they had been cast by Uranos. The Titan Oceanus, by inter- 
marriage with his sister Tethys, had three thousand daughters, the 
Ocean nymphs, and the same number of sons. But the Cronidse 
were the most powerful of the Titan race. From the union of Cronos, 
with his sister Rhea, sprang three daughters, Demeter, Hestia, and 
Here ; and three sons, Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus, all of whom play 
a prominent part in the Hellenic theogony. The artificial structure of 
these intermarriages, and the nicely-quadrated number of sons and 
daughters, form a strong feature of poetic invention ; while the forces 
generated and applied, point to the great legends of the Indian school. 
Powerful as was Cronos, his prophetic forebodings warned him of 
destruction from one of his own children. That child was Zeus ; a 

being clothed with untir- 
ing energy and resistless 
might. And so strong was 
the impression of this god- 
like type upon the Hellenic 
race, that the repubhcan 
tendencies of Greece, in its 
most palmy days, never af- 
fected his sovereign sway. 
He ever continued the 
" king of gods and men." 

Zeus was the head of 
the family of the Cronidap, 
who constituted the august 
assembly of the twelve 
great divinities 1 of Olym- 
pus, on whose lofty sum- 
mit Zeus fixed his magni- 
ficent abode. But the son 
of Cronos did not reach 
the full meridian of im- 
perial sway, without immi- 
nent and numerous perils. 
His sire had already de- 
voured five of his off- 
spring, and the infant Zeus only escaped destruction by being hurried 

1 Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, Hermes, Hephaistos, Hestia, Demeter, Here, Athene, 
Aphrodite, and Artemis. Other deities not included in the twelve were, Hades, 
Hecate, Helios, Lethe, Dionysus, Dione, Persephone, Themis, Selene, Eos ; the 
Charites, Harmonia, the Muses, the Mcerae, the Nereids, the Eileithyae, Proteus, 
Eidothasa, Leucothaea, the Nymphs, Nemesis, Phorcys, iEolus. Iris, the Hora?, 
and Hebe were servitors. 




ZEUS AND THE TITANS. 



29 



by night to a woody cavern on Mount Ida, in Crete, while Cronos, 
being presented with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, eagerly 
swallowed it, supposing it to be his child. Thus did Zeus escape. 
Meanwhile, he grew up, remarkable for bodily and mental energy ; and 
being resolved to crush the tyrannical power of Cronos and the Titans, Zeus 
he convoked to Olympus all the gods and goddesses to aid him in the jjj^ 
desperate struggle against the Titans, while he gained over to his side 
the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires, or the hundred-handed beings. These 
were powerful auxiliaries ; and though the conflict continued ten fearful 
years, the gigantic struggle was successful. 




Erect and dauntless see the Thunderer stand, 
The bolts red hissing from his vengeful hand ; 
He moves majestic round the starry frame, 
While vivid lightnings from Olympus flame'*, 
The earth wide blazes from the fires of Jove, 
Nor spares the flash the verdure of the grove. 1 

The mighty Cyclopes supplied their stores of thunder and lightning, 
the uptorn craggy cliffs and mountains were launched against the 
Titans, who were crushed, overwhelmed, and thrust down to Tartarus. 
In that gloomy dungeon were thev and Cronos for ever imprisoned, 
with the three Hecatoncheires to keep guard over the walls of brass 
built around them by Zeus, who committed to Poseidon the sovereignty Division of 
of the sea, to Hades the under world, while he himself retained the ^ r en 
etherial atmosphere, and the grand presiding sway over all things. Poseidon, 
The first consort of Zeus was Metis, the sagacious goddess, but being Zeus?' an 
forewarned that her progeny would overpower him, he swallowed her 
when pregnant with Athene ; and, having thus incorporated her wis- 
dom with his own nature, he produced Athene from his brain. 2 

But though the Titans were subdued, the Cronidae were not yet at 
their ease. Ga?a had intermarried with Tartarus, and had given birth 



1 Cooke's Hesiod, 995. 



2 Hes. Theog. 885. 



30 



THE TITANIC WAR. 



Birth of the 

monster 

Typhosus. 



His destruc- 
tion by the 
bolts of Zeus. 



Machinery of 
the Titanic 
war in the 
Indian epic. 



Indian 
heaven of 
Diupeti, or 
Indra. 



Greek 
adaptations 
of Indian 
Mythology. 



to a prodigious monster, Typhosus, who, had he been permitted to reach 
maturity, would have become supreme. This peril, Zeus with his 
usual forecast prevented. Hurling a thunderbolt from Olympus, 
Typhoeus was blasted by the candent fires of the thunderer, and 
dashed down into Tartarus. This crowning triumph left no one to 
dispute the supremacy of Zeus : — 

Through land and main the bolts red-hissing fell, 
And through old Ocean reached the gates of Hell ; 
The Almighty rising made Olympus nod, 
And the Earth groaned beneath the vengeful god. 
***** 

But Jove at length collected all his might, 
With lightning armed, and thunder, for the fight, 
With steps majestic from Olympus strode ; 
What power is able now to face the god ? 
The flash obedient executes his ire, 
The giant blazes with vindictive fire. 

***** 

So melted Earth — and so the giant fell, 
Plunged by the hands of mighty Jove to Hell ! 

Cooke's Hesiod, 1194. 

If we contemplate the machinery of the Titanic war and its acces- 
sories, we shall find not merely its counterpart, but its original type, in 
the Indian epic ; the identity of the nomenclature, and the whole cast 
of the dramatic action are not to be mistaken. Here the Daityas, 1 or 
Titans, make war upon Diupeti 2 (Jupiter), the lord of the firmament, 
whose celestial abode was situated upon Mount Meru (the Meros of 
the Greeks, 3 ), a place of most magnificent description, thus beau- 
tifully apostrophized in the hymn to Indra : — 

■ Hail mountain of delight ! 4 

Palace of glory blessed by Glory's King ! 
With prospering shade embower me while I sing 
Thy wonders yet unreached by mortal flight ! 
Sky-piercing mountain 1 in thy bowers of love 
No tears are seen save where medicinal stalks 
Weep drops balsamic o'er the silvered walks. 5 

This mountain, the Greeks with their easy uninvestigating spirit, 
placed in India, because their early oriental mythology told them that 
Meru was a " mountain of Indra" and the name of the deity was very 
naturally changed to the name of the country. As Meru, however, 
was not a Greek vocable, their pliant language easily wove an etymo- 
logy for the term. "Meros," a thigh, suggested to them a prominent 
part of the myth of Dionysus. He was, say they, sewn up in the 

1 Accus. Daityam, pronounced Dytyam (r/rav). So called from being the sons 
of Diti. 

2 Literally, the Lord of Heaven ; he was king of the firmament (Zeu-pater, or 
Dies-pater) ; called also Indra, from " Indra," excellent. 

3 Arrian, v. 1 ; Polysenus, 1. 1, 2. We shall again recur to this in the history 
of Dionysus. 

4 The garden of Indra is styled " Nandana," or delight. 

5 Sir W. Jones, Hymn to ludra. 



INDIAN PEOTOTYPE OF ZEUS. 



31 



thigh (h ru> f^vpo)) of Zeus, and so brought to maturity. 1 His history 

will be noticed shortly. Diupeti, or Indra, is represented with the 

thunderbolt 2 in his grasp. His heaven, a place of unbounded glory, 

is on Mount Mem. Its palaces are of gold, so resplendent with gems, 

as to surpass the radiant brightness of many suns, while flowers of Comparative 

delightful fragrance shed their odours around. The prominent and cilTactarand 

dignified position of Diupeti, is identical with the Greek mythology : — §°^°* d of 

So like a mass of dim light, o'er Diupeti, or 

The garden move the gods divine; Jupiter. 

And midst them, those who greater are 

Shine like so many stars afar. 

Now more and more advance they nigh, 

With port erect and stature high, 

Their step majestically slow, 

Their glance cast on the earth below ; 

Before them Indra, dignified 

With royal mien and royal pride, 

Proceeds. 3 

In doubtful emergencies, when a consultation of the deities is re- 
quired, like Zeus, he is the president of the council. 

This deity was frequently deprived of his kingdom in the wars 
between the gods and the giants, and obliged, like Zeus, to wander 
about the world. The same profligacy and laxity of moral principle 
characterise both. In the great conflict of the Titans, we find Zeus Parallel 
assisted by all the goddesses, as well as gods : — zeuTand 

All rush to battle with impetuous might, SeSStauSc 
And gods and goddesses provoke the fight. conflict 

Hes. 970. 

So, likewise, the consorts 4 of the oriental deities, each attends her 
lord. " The energy of each god, exactly like him, with the same form, 
the same decorations, and the same vehicle, came to fight against the 
demons." 5 In the Epics both of the east and west, the gods assume Assumption 
at their pleasure, in this tremendous conflict, the forms of various of forms ' 
fierce animals. Both Siva and Dionysus assume the form of a lion, 
assailing the attacking monster with teeth and fangs. 6 

1 Hence styled f£tiooppx(pjj; } (/.'/iooTQatyYi;. Diod. iv. 5 ; Eurip. Bacch. 295 5 
Eustath. ad Horn. p. 310. 

2 The Vajra ; Digam. Gr. V'arges, which Aristotle defines as lightning in rapid 

motion. And so the Sanscr. to go, and "^cff affix. 

3 Swerga, or the Heaven of Indra ; by Kasiprasad Ghosh, a pupil of the Anglo- 
Indian College, Calcutta. 

4 They are denominated the Sactis, or divine energies. 

5 Colebrooke, Asiatic Researches. 

6 Rhsetum retorsisti leonis 
* Unguibus, horribilique mala. 

Hor. Car. ii. 19, 23. 

A symbol common to Siva and Dionysus is the equilateral triangle, and the same 
obscenities were common in the worship of both. 



32 



INDIAN PROTOTYPE OF ZEUS. 



When rising fierce in impious arms 

The giant race with dire alarms 

Assailed the sacred realms of light, 

With lion wrath and dreadful paw, 

With blood besmeared and foaming: jaw, 

He drove their horrid chief to flight. Francis, Hor. 

various In the Ramayuna of Valmiki, this process of auxiliary creation, 

Ssumed by expressly for the benefit of the gods, is acknowledged. " The nume- 

of ufeEast r ° US ^ osts '" °^ ^ e supreme embodied energy we are told, " stood 

LdWest. ready to destroy the Ten-headed" : — 

Heroes of boundless energy, puissant all, 
Skilled to assume the ever- varying form. 1 

And just on the eve of this Titanic war, the supreme thus addresses 
all the gods : — 

For Vishnu, in a righteous cause engaged 
For all, create ye mighty comrades ; skilled 
In the illusive arts of form, assumed at will, 
Swift as the winds, and of heroic mould. 2 

To this doctrine we shall again have occasion to advert, in the pre- 
and post-heroic ages, since it formed a powerful epic machinery for the 
Greek poets. 

Hecaton- Nothing can be more in keeping with the Indian Epic than the cha- 
exacUndTan racter of the Hecatoncheires, or the hundred-handed giants, some of the 
type- main auxiliaries of Zeus. Parvati comes to the assistance of Diupeti, 
or Indra, who has been dethroned by the giant and his troops. This 
mighty being assumes a thousand arms, and takes post on Mount 
Vindhu. Mountains and trees are torn up by the roots, and hurled at 
the deity. The Hecatoncheires use the same tremendous weapons : — 

They mighty rocks from their foundations tore, 
And fiercely brave against the Titans bore. 3 

But it is by the aid of the " thousand arms " that victory is secured, 
and Diupeti restored to his kingdom. It is important to notice the 
Position of position of the two contending hosts of Hesiod. They occupy re- 
spectively Mounts Olympus and Othrys, the northern parts of Greece. 
And here we are led into a singular chain of mythology and coloni- 
Names of the zation, upon which philology will throw a powerful light. It is 
StifmenS remarkable that the names of the chief mountains of the first settle- 
ments of the Pelasgi, in Greece, and the name of that people likewise, 
should so distinctly point to an emigration from India, whence a two- 
Course of the fold stream of colonization appears to have flowed ; the one through 
emigration. Persia, along the Caspian Sea, over Mount Caucasus, and thence 

1 Apramyabala vlra, vikrantah k5manipinah. 

Earn. i. sect. 16, Slok. 17. 

* . Kamarupanah 

Mayavidaschan suranschan vayonejasaman. Ityadi. 

Ram. sect. 16. 

3 Cooke's Hesiod. " Parvati " signifies a mountain. She is a female deity. 



ti e Hesiodic 
hosts, 



IMMIGRATION OF THE PELASGI. 



33 



towards 
Greece. 



through Thrace into northern Greece (hence the so-called Thracian 
legends are in reality Indian) ; the other through Persia and northern 
Arabia into Egypt, and thence after a longer or shorter interval into 
southern Greece : and certainly much light may be thrown upon the 
history of these two large streams of emigration by the popular epics 
of India. There is little doubt that a furious religious war terminated 
in the expulsion of a large body of the inhabitants of India ; the sect, 
in all probability, was that of Buddha. That they should be stig- Connection 
matised with the most opprobrious titles is not to be wondered at. fjJIf 1011 
The demons, the hereditary foes of the gods (the ruling religious source of the 
power), in the Indian epic are styled Danavas and Daityas ; so called, n ian epic * 
the Danavas, from Danu, the first wife of Kasyapa, the Daityas 
(Titans), from Diti, the second. These foes of the gods, then (or 
opponents to the priesthood), being compelled to emigrate, the 
Daityas, Titans, or Casyapites took the northern route of CWi-mire, Route 
(called Casyapura, the Caspian Sea, and Om-casus, i. e. Mount 
Casyapa, 1 ) and thence through Thrace into northern Greece. The lofty 
mountain in this part of Hellas, they would naturally style the 
" Great " mountain, or " Lumbo ;" 2 it is called by the modern Greeks 
E'lymbo ; by their ancestors it was named O'lumpo-s. It is not a 
little singular, that " Lumbu " should be a name of the Indian Sree, 
or Roman Ceres, and that Ulumboshu should be one of the nymphs 
of Diupeti's heaven. Kertika, also, another deity, appears in Mount 
Kerketi-us, in Thessaly. As a confirmation of this, we observe that 
Kertika was appointed general of the celestial armies, against the 
Daityas or Titans ; Mount Kerketius is the advanced post of Olympus, 
the fighting-ground of Zeus : the Titans are posted on Mount Othrys ; 
and Kertika is the Hindco Mars. The great chain dividing northern 
Greece, and running north and south, would, according to the usual 
custom of emigrants, from a similar strongly-marked range in their old 
country, be naturally named Bindhyu ; it reappears in Greece as 
Pindu-s. In the Pindus mountain rises the river Peneus ; in Bindhyu, 
the old country, rises the Peyushni, which by metathesis is identical 
with the river in Greece. Flowing into the Peneus, is the stream 
Apidanus, clearly seen in the Sanscrit as Apidhanu, i. e., " disap- 
pearing," exactly characteristic of those singular Katabothra, or secret 
channels, noticed in the geographical division of this volume, by which 
several rivers in Greece disappeared. To the north of Doris is Peiasgic 
Mount Callidromus, or the " Forest Mountain " (Sansc. " Calindu," a t™7of Cla " 
mountain, and Dromu, a tree) ; a name which the settlers gave, from a in 
mountain in their old country, viz. Calindu, part of the Himalayan range, 
in fact, " the mountain," by way of eminence ; while the Cambunian 
range is the revived nomenclature of Cambu-ya, a country in the north 

1 Pers. Koh, a mountain, and Casyapa. 

2 great, large, spacious. A name also of the goddess Durga. 
[H. G.] J) 



34 



IMMIGRATION OF THE PELASGI. 



Indian f India. 1 Mount Tomarus is clearly the "Someru" of the Indian epic, 
renamed by another form of Meru, the sacred mountain, again to be prominently 
TrTGfeeclTand reco g n i se0 ^ m Meroe, of ^Ethiopia, the seat of a high sacerdotal caste. 
Ethiopia. The reader will recollect that it is to the "Pious ^Ethiopians"* that 
Homer makes Zeus and the other deities repair for a twelve days' 
banquet; and it is singular, that in a popular Indian drama, we have a 
notice of " the ceremony of the twelve years' sacrifice," with the elders 
who have gone to assist at its celebration, offering a curious analogy 
to the sacrifice noticed by Homer : — 

The sire of gods and all the ethereal train 
On the warm limits of the farthest main 
Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace 
The feast of Ethiopia's blameless race. 
Twelve days the gods indulge the genial rite, 
Returning with the twelfth revolving light. 3 

Tomarus and With Tomarus again, we fall in with the most ancient myth of Zeus 
my^of Zeus P e ^ as gikos, whose oracle was near this mountain, 4 not far from which he 
Peiasgikos. was brought up by the Dodoncean nymphs, the Hyades, 5 with whom the 
Indian epic deals under the name of " Wood-goers," (Vanechari ;) whilst 
in Thrace we have Mount Is-marus, e with Maro, for the priest of Apollo. 
Mount Ossa, is evident in " Osha," the mountain of " Day-break ;" whilst, 
by the southern Pelasgi, the chain of "Northern" or " Lofty" Moun- 
tains, would be " Ottra," appearing in more modern Greek as Othry-s. 

The other band of emigrants were, in all probability, the Danavas, 
who, after passing into Egypt, possibly by the same route as Baird's over- 
land army from India, subsequently moved forward into Greece. The 
Danaus and Danavas, then, would be no others than Danaus (Digamma, Danavas) 
his followers. an( ^ mg f i} owerS} w hose fifty daughters are said to have married the 
sons of Egyptus, or, in other words, whose people intermarried with 
the Egyptians generally. From this country, however, some act of 
violence obliged them to fly, as we may learn by the murder of the 
sons of Egyptus, a tale celebrated in mythology. 
Composers of It is highly probable that the popular epics of India were the com- 
epic 1 how 1 position of some of the dominant priesthood, in which their vanquished 
actuated. opponents were sung as Rakshas, or demons ; and though these 
names may have, at one time, borne a different meaning to that affixed 
Change of to it by the priestly poet, the flexible nature of his language, enabled 
bf new tl0n ^ us *° a: ^ x a s ^g ma u P on * ae vanquished party, in the same 
application, manner that the Greeks found no difficulty in finding an etymology, 
to suit any favourite theory or legend. When prominent epic names, 
therefore, reappear in Greece, they may, in fact, have had originally a 
meaning different from that which we now obtain through such 

1 This may have been a name originally given to this district from its having 
been the resort of robber tribes (Cambu, a plunderer). 

2 Aaitucoirri -rot (tins sXivtrtTai OvXvf^Tov^s. II. i. 425. 

3 Pope's Homer, II. i. Vide Uttara Rama Cherita, by Professor Wilson, p. 289. 

4 Horn. II. ii. 5 Schol. ad Horn, xviii. 486. 

6 Od. ix. 197. 



IMMIGRATION OF THE PELASGI. 



35 



writings ; for considered as a matter even of pure mythology, nothing 
can exceed the strong party feeling every where apparent. This latitude 
of signification we shall shortly elucidate. Thus, the Danavas and 
Daityas (Danai and Titans) would share in the same stigma. As in 
Greece, we have shown the names of Indian deities, rivers and moun- 
tains, as also terms in that language, descriptive of locality, we can, in 
conjunction with these philological evidences, on these principles, Philological 
further demonstrate the original settlement of those singular people, l^l^ e of 
the Pelasgi} " Pelasa," is actually the Indian name of the ancient Peiasgian 
Bahar, or Magadha. It further signifies "a demon," (and here we settlements ' 
have the epic stigma). Let us recollect that the great and early chief- 
tain of this country was Peleus : that his son is said to have been Peieus and 
educated by the Thessalian Centaur, a monstrous creation, as was the Pelasa - 




Pelasa ; that the very name of that centaur was Cheiron, a name of 
the Indian god of Love (Chero, and nasalized Cheron), that it signifies 
also " a horse" and " one desirous of prohibited things," and we shall at 
once see in this, the figure of the centaur, and the myth of the attack JfyJJ^ 
on the women of the Lapithae. How exactly in keeping with this centaur 
Indian idea of Cheiron is the Grecian, may be seen in the accom- elucidate 
panying figure of the Centaur and Cupid, taken from an ancient Greek 
marble ; add to this, that the figure of the Centaur occurs amongst the 
1 Pelasa, and ga-m, "to go." 

D 2 



36 



IMMIGRATION OF THE PELASGI. 



Achilles. 



evidences of 
early fable 



origin. 



hieroglyphical sculptures, in the magnificent temple of Isis, in Egypt, 1 
and we have another evidence of the identity of the Pelasgi and the 
Danai. Again, the name of the pupil of the Centaur, Achilles, proves 
Name of to be a name of Vishnu, with a slight prefix being A'chila, 2 nor was 
anything more usual among the people of high antiquity, than to name 
children after some special deity, a custom which the history of the 
three Hebrews at the Chaldean Court will amply illustrate. Nor must 
we forget the more ordinary signification of Pelasa, " green or leafy," 
and we are at once reminded of the leafy Pelion, the very hill piled by 
the giants upon Ossa, or " Osha," the hill of "Day-break" let us 
philological remember, also, that Titan (tLtclv) and " A-dityam " (accus.) are both 
names of " the Sun" and we have a strong chain of more than mytho- 
philological evidence, by which the east is united to the west, and by 
which we are irresistibly led to trace back to India, at once the source 
of this fable, and the strange race of the Pelasgi. 
Epic If we survey more closely the machinery of Hesiod's theogony, we 

machinery s h a ]i fi n( j ft f a high antiquity. The Titans are thrust down into 

ofHesiodof rr ?~ i -. . i tt. i i 

Hindoo Tartarus, or to Hades, the same word m the Hindoo system, by 
Metathesis, is Adhas, i. e., " down, or downwards ;" and in both the 
Indian and Grecian theogonies, the Amritah, or Ambr-osia, the " im- 
mortal cheer," confers immortality upon the partaker. 

It is strange that with Sappho and Alcman 3 nectar is the food of 
the gods, and ambrosia their drink. And here again we have a sin- 
gular philological confirmation of the direction of the Pelasgic emigra- 
tion. While the purer Indian form tells us of Amritah and Adhas 
(Ambrosia and Hades) : the Indian emigrants through Persia tell us of 
Nectar 4, and Tartarus, 5 i. e., the "better" drink of the gods, and the 
" Darker " infernal regions. Hence the confusion of classical authori- 
ties ; because it is evident that the celestial cheer might be either the 
" better" drink or the "better" food. 6 In fact as early as the times 
of Homer the two terms seem quite confused. 7 

The weapons hurled by Zeus are candent thunderbolts (Arges, 
Digamma Varges, Sansc. Vagra). The instruments of fire or Agne- 
yastra (fiery weapons) of the great Hindoo sages, are favourite arms of 

1 Denon, PL cxxxii. a. 2. 

2 Though the a is privative in Sanscrit as in Greek, there is no reason why it 
should not have been used as an euphonic ; nor is it improbable that the present 
mode of writing the Greek warrior's name is a corruption from the genuine lan- 
guage of his day. The modern Persians often use a vocalic prefix to Greek names 
—as Istephan for Stephen (2-Ti<pd,yo;) ; Iskander for Secander, i.e. Alexander. 

3 Od. 16. 

* (Nektar, better, compar. of t * Cjj, nek, good). Classical authorities, 

absurdly enough, derive this from v»? and ktolu. 

5 Tar. dark ; Tartar, darker. Our own English term we get through 

the baxon from another Persian form < * Csj\j, Tarek. Dar'k. 
c Vide II. iv. 3, II. xix. 38, Od, v. 93. 

7 Vide Od. i. 339. See also Heyne's Exc. 9, ad II. i. Obs. ad II. 190. 



OEPHIC THEOGONY. 



37 



the Indian Epic, and are bestowed as distinguished gifts, and seem 
endowed with a sort of living self-agency and personality. 

The ambrosia of Hesiod and the amritah of Valmiki have the effect Reviving 
of giving additional vigour in both cases — amb^sS oJ 6 

Their spirits nectar and ambrosia raise, amritah. 
And fire their generous breasts to acts of praise. 1 

So also in the Indian Epic, the gods would have been defeated had 
they not refreshed themselves with the amritah ; 2 and Rahu, a giant 
who succeeds in getting a draught of this elixir vita?, fares very well, 
though his head is severed from the trunk ; and he is sufficiently 
vigorous to endeavour to devour the sun. 

We have now rapidly passed through some of the main points and Didactic 
chief machinery of the Hesiodic theogony, which the reader will per- Sesiod! and 
ceive is not purely Grecian, but borrowed from Oriental sources. The relics of old 
didactic style of Hesiod is so totally different from the smooth flowing S5Stems " 
narrative of Homer, that while the former is often hampered with the 
relics of the old Indian system, the latter proceeds easily and fluently, 
and is never embarrassed by an endeavour to systematize. 

Let us now for a moment turn to the Orphic Cosmogony, and we Greek 
shall observe all that authority of language and that elaboration of {^o^E 
thought that attest the formation of collegiate dogmas ; the original of 
which we shall find in the Indo-theistic accounts. Here, the first First agent, 
agent arising is Cronos ; his successors are Chaos and iEther, whence 
Cronos produced the vast mundane egg. 3 From this sprang the The 
first-born god Phanes, or Metis, sometimes called Hericapseus, 4 a ^g? 
being of twofold sex, who generated the mundane system, bearing 
within him the seed of the Gods. 

The Orphic theogony handles the concealment and final escape of Orphic 
the infant Zeus substantially in the same form with Hesiod, though {j^Stho? f 
with more complexity. Here we find Zeus hidden in the cave of Nux Jove, 
or Night, in company with Eide and Adrasteia. Tended by these, he 
owes his preservation to the armed dance and the resounding instru- 
ments of the Curetes ; their tumult overpowers his infant cries, which 
are consequently unheard by Cronos. After having overcome his 
father, and gained the supremacy, he absorbed into himself Metis, toge- Absorbent 
ther with all the first elementary train of things, and then, out of his reproductive 
own nature, regenerated all things afresh. This process of absorption j^ C pg| tel 
and reproduction is one of the strongest characteristics of the Indian Indian. 

1 Cooke's Hesiod, 941. 

2 « (fi^oroi) ; so Sansc. a priv. and mrita, mors. 

3 " From the direction of spirit, with the acquiescence of intellect, there was formed 
an egg, which gradually expanded like a bubble of water." (Vishnu Pur. c. i. ; vide 
translat. by Prof. Wilson.) So Aristophanes, who appears to have been well 
acquainted with the Orphic system : T/Wsv tt^utio-tov vvrwpiuv w%, h piXavon- 

Tl()05 loot. 

4 Hericapceus and Hiranyakasipa, I believe, from their position in the theogony 
of the East and West, will be found to be identical. 



38 



ORPHIC THEOGONY. 



mythology, involving the grand fundamental doctrine of the Avatars ; 
the latter principally occurs again in a marked manner in the case of 
Zagreus the homed child, whose body was the primary residence of 
the soul of Dionysus. Here the transmigrative element is again at 
work. This noble child, under the name of Zagreus, had been slain 
by the artifices of the Titans, who after cutting up his body and 
boiling it in a cauldron left the heart only, which being given to 
Zagreus. Semele, Zagreus 1 was reborn from her under the guise of Dionysus. 2 
From the consideration of these mystic chronicles, we turn to the 
Orpheus and chronicler himself. Orpheus and iEsop are representatives, the first of 
vtanee. doctrinal, the second of moral apologue. Both were of Oriental birth: 
Ophos, dusky or dark ; and Aithops, Ethiopian, or " the dark face," 
sufficiently point out the physical type of both. At an early period 
the sacerdotal colonies of Buddha, expelled from India by the power 
of the Brahmins, moved westward, and in their advance spread many 
Orpheus said f the tenets of their peculiar faith. Hence Orpheus is said to have 
irom Thrace, come from Thrace, a region to the Greeks of most indefinite extent, — a 
region, however, which, as may be seen in Herodotus, was one of the 
main sources of the Hellenic sacred rites. 

We have seen that the names of several mountains and rivers in 
Thessaly, are of Indian origin, and we have noticed an emigrative 
Musical fame movement progressing through Thrace into northern Greece. When 
and the 6US we reflect upon the musical character of Orpheus, that he is said to be 
Muses. the son of Calliope, one of the Muses; when we consider that the 
worship of the Muses guides us to Thrace, the very ground over which 
this emigration must have passed, and next points to Pieria, about 
Mount Olympus, the new Indian Meru, and when we reflect upon the 
office of these graceful beings, the Muses, we are irresistibly led to 
their early original type. 

They dwell upon Olympus, 3 are the goddesses of poetry, and song, 
and dance ; and pour forth those festive songs at the repasts of the 
Position and immortals. 4 The eastern Epic tells us of those graceful nymphs the 
deduced. Apsaras, 5 who dwell upon the lofty mountains of the gods ; celestial 
dancers, celebrated for their beauty. 



1 See the Dionysiaca of Nonnus, c. vi. 264. Vide also the Orphic Theogony, 
Brandis, c. xvii. and xiii. of his Handbuch der Geschichte der Griechish. Romisch. 
Philos., in which he justly considered this theogony as long preceding the earliest 
Ionic philosophy. 

2 Mr. Grote has considered that the Orphic is based upon the Hesiodic theogony, 
and in support of this view he points out that Zeus has in Homer one predecessor, 
in Hesiod two, and in Orpheus four. We differ from this opinion, drawing our 
inference from the relative completeness given by earlier time. The Orphic account 
is more complete, because it was given nearer the time of the first systematiser from 
the Oriental type. Thrace was in the line of Indian tradition ; Homeric Ionia 
did not fall within its track. 

3 II. ii. 488. 4 II. i. 604 ; Hymn to Ap. Pyth. 11. 

s Like Aphrodite, they rose from the foam of the sea ; though, in one age, they 
are said to be the daughters of Kasyapa. 



ORPHIC THEOGONY. 



39 



Myriads were they born, and all 



In vesture heavenly clad, and heavenly gems ; 
Yet more divine their native semblance, rich 
With all the gifts of grace, and youth, and beauty. 1 

There, too, celestial singers, redolent of immortal fragrance (as their celestials 
name implies), 2 inhabit the heaven of Diupeti (Zeu-pater), where they g?ge» of 
pour forth their heavenly strains at the banquets of the immortals. 

There where the bands in lucid rows assemble, 
Flutes breathe, and citherns tremble. 3 

It is not a little remarkable, that one of the chief of those celestial 
nymphs of the mountain of the gods, should be Ulumbosha, 4 a name 
almost identical with Olympus. 

The doctrinal basis of the Orphic theogony is in all respects iden- 
tical with the Indian, while the musical powers of the great Thracian 
minstrel are found paralleled by results as astonishing, though of a 
more subtle cast : these we shall shortly notice. The doctrinal sources identity of 
of the mundane egg, the abstinence from animal food, the incarnations q^^™ 6 
of the deity, and of the soul under various forms, animal or vegetable, doctrines 
the to iray, or the all-comprehensiveness of the Supreme Ruler of the in)^ 16 
world, his energizing emanations — these and other tenets of Orpheus, system, 
are to be sought in the great Brahminical dogmas taught in the 
Bhagavad Gita, the Vishnu Purana, and the Manavah Dherma Sastra. 

The Orphic doctrine of the universality of Zeus is thus recapitulated 
by Apuleius : — 

Zih; T^uto? ytviro, Ziv; vfrxro; ug%iKigtzvves, 
Zib; Jii<pocX r /i, Ziv; (jc'ia 'o «• Aio; ttccvtoc, riTvaron. 

Apul. de Mundo. 

" Zeus, the lofty thunderer, is the first and the last and the middle ; 
from him all things proceed." In the Bhagavad Gita we find identity of 
" Among weapons, I am the thunderbolt ;" and again, " Among and 
transitory nature, I am the beginning, the middle, and the end." 8 doctrinal 
Both the Orphic and Pythagorean doctrines, Herodotus believed to continued 
have emanated from Egypt, 6 which would appear to support the fact 
of the double stream of emigration before noticed, by which these 
principles were brought through both Thrace and Egypt to Greece. Double 
Whilst the amazing resemblance of the Egyptian priestly ritual, and doctSnaf 
attire, to that of India, the similarity of several important deities and influx into 
their offices, 7 together with the Hindoo form of many of the skulls of the Greece - 

1 Prof. Wilson, from first book of Ramayuna. 

2 From " gandha," perfume, and " arbba," to go. 

3 Sir W. Jones, Ode to India. 4 From " ulum," ornament. 

Bhag. Git. Lect. x. Slok. 31. 
6 'OpoXoylovo-i Ti ravra <ro7<rt 'O^ixolffi xuXtofttvoitri xou Bxx.%ixoi<riy iovtri It 
Aiyvnrtoio-i. — Herod, ii. 81. 7 Vide Lobeck Aglaoph. 1. c. 



40 



ORPHIC THEOGONY. 



Proofs drawn 
from sacred 
books. 



Embodied 
by Pope. 



Doctrine of 
vocal sway 
and musical 
supremacy. 



Egyptian mummies which have been examined, 1 still further support 
the opinions advanced. The Orphic devotee believed that " belonging 
to the Universe, there was within Zeus, the splendid height of the ethereal 
expansive heaven," and that " whatever has been or will be, is produced 
within Zeus." 2 His Indian type, acknowledged that " the world was 
produced by Vishnu ; that it existed in him ; that it was the cause of 
its continuance and termination ; in fine, that he was the world." 3 The 
former believed that " Zeus was the source of the sea ; that he was 
the sun and the moon ;" 4 the latter that " he was taste in the water, 
light in the sun and moon." 5 In fact, it was the same noble doctrine, 
that has descended to the great moral poet — 

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees. 6 

In the character of Lyrist, Orpheus towers amongst the mythologic 
clouds, and his apotheosis is of corresponding exaltation. His music 
captivates creation animate and inanimate : — 

What man, what hero, on the tuneful lyre, 
Or sharp-toned flute will Clio choose to praise ? 
What god whose hallowed name 
Shall through the shade of Helicon resound 
On Pindus or on Hasmus ever cool ? 
From whence the forests in confusion wild 
To vocal Orpheus urged their way ; 
Who by his mother's art, harmonious muse, 
With soft delay could stop the falling streams 
And winged winds, with strings of concord sweet. 
Powerful the listening oaks to lead. 

Francis' Horace. 

The doctrine of vocal sway and musical supremacy over not merely 
material but elementary nature, as held by the Hindoos, will illustrate 
at once this Orphic attribute and its sources. Each " raug" or musical 
mode has its own appropriate effect ; some appear to have a mysterious 
connection with day, and others with night. An Oriental writer 
relates two striking mythic illustrations of the power of these modes 
occurring in the reign of the Emperor Akber. He observes, there is a 

1 See Blumenbach, Beitr'age zur Naturgeschichte, wherein he notices three 
varieties : 1st, the Ethiopian form ; 2nd, the Hindus-artige, or figure resembling 
the Hindoos ; 3rd, the Berber-ahnliche, the Berber mould. 

2 Tvvixcc ffvv too tfavr) Aio; vrakiv hro; irv^in 

Ai@(go; ivgiitis 'hV ougavov oiyXxov vipos, 

"Oirirsc r a>j« yiyxaru, nou van^ov e^rotr %f&ik%.iv 
'Ey'iviro' Z'/ivo; yatrrtgi ertlppa vrKpvxti. 

Prod, in Timoeum. p. 95. 

3 Vishnu Purana, c. i. 

4 Ziv; tovtou j>i%of Zth; r<\tos nSi ffiXww 

Apul. de Mundo. 
5 K&so aham apsu (Kounteya), prabhasmi sasimuryayoh. 

Bhag. Git. Lect. vii. Slok. 7. 

6 Pope's Essay on Man, sect. ix. 



OEPHIC THEOGONY. 



41 



tradition that whosoever should attempt to sing the raug Dhee pook, How handled 

by the 
Hindoos. 



would be destroyed by fire. This raug the Emperor Akber ordered bv 



Naik Gopal, a celebrated musician, to sing. He endeavoured to excuse 
himself, but in vain. The Emperor insisted on obedience. He, there- 
fore, requested permission to go home and bid farewell to his friends. 
It was winter when he returned, after an absence of six months. 
Before he began to sing he placed himself in the waters of the Jumma, Naik Gopal 
till they reached his neck. As soon as he had performed a strain, ^fereofthe 
the entire river gradually became hot ; at length it began to boil, and Jumma. 
the agonies of the unhappy musician were insupportable. Suspending 
for a moment the melody thus cruelly extorted, he sued for mercy 
from the monarch, but in vain. Akber wished to prove still more 
strongly the power of this raug. Naik Gopal resumed the fatal strain, consumed by 
flames burst with violence from his body, which, though immersed in fire - 
the waters of the Jumma, was consumed to ashes. 

Again, in the same reign, it is said, that Mia Tonsine, a wonderful Effects of 
musician, sang one of the night raugs at mid-day. The result was Mia Tonsine, 
astonishing. He was performing in the magnificent halls of the 
Emperor, and the powers of his music were such that it instantly 
became night, and the darkness extended in a circle round the palace, 
as far as the sound of his voice could be heard. 

The astronomical apotheosis of Orpheus and his harp follows the Musico- 
Hindoo system. There, the sage Dhrava, is made the pole star, by analogy 1110 * 1 
virtue of the imperial award ; " a star shall be assigned to thee above 
the three worlds." 1 The Pythagorean doctrine of the music of the Music of the 
spheres, which was considered the result of the harmonious movement s P heres - 
of the heavenly bodies, may possibly be found connected with Orphic 
Apotheosis, or with the Gandharbas, the choristers of Indra's heaven, 
especially as the greater proportion of the Orphic and Pythagorean 
doctrine is identical. We must not confound the comparatively 
modern written forms of the Orphic tenets with their actually very 
ancient practical existence. This would tend to invalidate the possi- 
bilities of correctness in history, unless recorded at or soon after the 
fact. And although many of the existing writings of Orpheus and Alexandrine 
Musaeus may be proved to be compositions of poets of the Alexandrine c°™P 0Sltl0ns 
age, it is impossible for us to pronounce dogmatically upon the old necessarily 
authorities which may have formed the basis of their writings. Plato 2 
and Aristophanes 3 carry the antiquity of Orpheus considerably beyond 
that of Homer, and though Onomacritus, B. c. 610-510, is said by 
Pausanias 4 to have been the inventor of the tale of Zagreus, this, by Sources of 
no means, disproves the possibility of that author's having access to U nknown. US 
Orphic writings in existence in his day. 5 Not only in Hellas might 
similar doctrines have been accessible but in Persia, much nearer their 

1 Vishnu Purana, c. ix. 2 Theatet, p. 179. 

3 Rana?, 1030. * p aus> viii> 37> 3. 

5 Nitzsch, in his Erklarende Anmerkungen zu Homeris Odyssee, enters deeply into 
the connection of the writings of Onomacritus with the Homeric poems. 



42 ORPHIC THEOGONY. 

original source. We know from Herodotus, 1 that when expelled from 
onomacritus Athens, Onomacritus repaired to Persia, where influenced by Peisis- 
thilTersfaii tratus, then at the Persian Court, he recited those ancient oracles of 
Court. Hellas, which favoured the attempt of an invasion. In the army of 
Xerxes there was a large body of Indian auxiliaries ; and, farther, the 
i ndo- Persian connection between the court of Persia and India must have been great, 
connection. ] atter government had constructed a grand military and com- 

mercial road into the heart of central Asia. From these sources, there- 
fore, in addition to emigration and individual travel, the Orphic doc- 
trines would have access to Greece. 



legends of We shall now turn from the investigation of national and collegiate 
Chios" ° relics to the more popular and simple treatment of individual myths, 
by the Homerid of Chios, about b. c. 660, whose simplicity of style 
and easy flow of language led Thucydides to imagine his compositions 
to have been the work of the great author of the Iliad. 

1 Herod, vii. 6. 




CHAPTER IV. 
POPULAR LEGENDS OF THE GODS. 



NAMES OF THE GREEK A3T> R0MA2N DIVESTTIES OR HEROES. 



Greek. 


Latin. 


Greek. 


Latin. 


Zeus - - 


- Jupiter. 


Artemis 


- Diana. 


Poseidon - 


- Neptune. 


Aphrodite - 


- Venus. 


Ares - - 


- Mars. 


Eos - - - 


- Aurora. 


Dionysus - 


- Bacchus. 


Hestia - - 


- Vesta. 


Hermes - - 


- Mercury. 


Letd - - 


- Latona. 


Helios - - 


- Sol. 


Demeter 


- Ceres. 


Hephaistos - 


- Vulcan, 


Persephone - 


- Proserpine. 


Hades - - 


- Pluto. 


Heracles - 


- Hercules. 


Here - - 


Juno. 


Asclepius - 


- iEsculapius. 


Athene - - 


- Minerva. 


Odysseus - 


- Ulysses. 



Those names which are the same in Greek and Latin have been omitted. 



The productions styled the " Homeric Hvnxns" were preludes (-poi/im) Nature of the 
chanted by the Rhapsodist, at the festival of the gods, as an overture P roimia - 
to the epic poems there recited in honour of each special deity. They 
are of a most beheving, simple, and piimitive spirit. 1 Their style and JJjf^JJjJ 6 ? 1 
treatment were calculated to enlist irresistibly the feelings of a Greek h/mns™ 6 " 
auditory, and to continue the same delightful stream of enjoyment, 
and the same mythical colouring which so pre-eminently distinguished 
the author of the Iliad. Of such a nature, dashed with its mil share 
1 Vide Mullens Greek Lit. p. 74. 



44 



LEGEND OF DIONYSUS. 



Poetic 
picture of 
Dionysus. 



The 

helmsman 
derided. 



of the terrible and supernatural, is the popular song in honour of 
Dionysus. 

THE LEGEND OF DIONYSUS. 

The Homeric hymn describes Dionysus as standing on a projecting 
point of the sea-shore, in the guise of a young man in the bloom of youth, 

his magnificent sable locks wav- 
ing around his noble form, and a 
purple robe floating over his 
massive shoulders. He is sud- 
denly seen and seized by some 
Tyrrhenian pirates : — 

Swiftly sailed the pirate crew 
Of the gallant bark in view 

The purple waters o'er. 
Soon the signal-nod they sighted, 
Whom the doom of fate invited, 

Bounding fleet ashore ; 
Dashed they gaily at their prey, 
Seized, and shipward bore away. 1 

They fancied him the son of 
some noble prince, and would 
bind him with rigid bonds ; but 
these spontaneously burst away 
from hands and feet, and he sat 
down smiling with his azure 
eyes. The helmsman perceiving 
this at once called out to his 
comrades, and warned them, lest 
they should have been binding 
some god, it might be Zeus, or 
Apollo of the silver bow, or even Poseidon, at the same time pointing 
out his majestic mien, more like the immortals than a human being. 
He conjures the crew to set Dionysus ashore, lest in his indignation 
he should raise against them fierce tempests and hurricanes. He is 
laughed at, and Dionysus is carried out to sea. But the skipper 
fiercely chid the steersman : — 

" You meddling lubber, heed the gale ; 
Taut everything — sheet home the sail — 
My crew shall watch the knave. 

I fancy Egypt he may view, 
Or Cyprus — the far Northmen too — 
Nay, sail a little farther. 

1 ru.'fcu- Va.v&Qis i'vtr'iXftov 6.<7ro vw>; 

Ayinrra) w/ioyivovro 6ou; tvri oivo&a vrovrov, 
Tugiryivor tovs B' hyt sccckos f&ogo;' ol Ti ihovrt? 




LEGEND OF DIONYSUS. 



45 



The rogue, I doubt me, at the last, 
Will find his tongue, and gabble fast 

Of heaps of pelf- — 

Of friends and brothers. 1 

So saying they hold on everything, and with a strong gale stand They sail out 
out to sea. But soon miraculous appearances are but too evident : — rjionvsus! h 

First sweet-draughted wine forth streaming, 

Fragrant, murmuring as the rill, 
Through the dark ship eddied, seeming 

With ambrosia heaven to fill ; 

Stupid as the seamen gazed, 

Wonder filled them all amazed. 

Vines quick round the topsail twining, 

Wreath on wreath with tendrils hung, 
Clustering grapes unnumbered shining, 

Dark the masts with ivy clung. 2 

The oar-pegs also are covered with garlands. On beholding this 
prodigy they all earnestly entreated Medeides, the helmsman, to steer 
towards shore. Dionysus now assumes the form of a lion and roars Assumes the 
awfully, whilst a horrible shaggy bear is seen standing near him. [°J n nofa 
Terrified, the crew all rush to the stem : — 

Agonized with horror, they Fate of the 

Round the pious helmsman poured ; crew. 
Sudden sprang, and bore away, 

The beast, their skipper. Overboard, 
To shun that doom, all wildly leap 
The crew into the awful deep, 
And dolphins they become I 3 

Compassionating the discreet helmsman, Dionysus prevented him 

1 Aaifiovt, ovgov oga, cc : ua o^'Ipt'iov %Xxio vyjo's 
lu/^cravf ovrXct. Xafiuv ooi £ avr' oLvhottrffi (jliXthth. 
"EXvo/uat, h A'l'yuTrro* a<pj|s7«<, ri 'oyi KuTgov, 
"H i$ 'YTigfiogsous, r, Ixao-Tipn)- \; §s <tsA.si/tjjv 
"Ex <jfoT kou ctlrov Ti <p'iXov; xou Kirif&ocra, Kuvra. 

a Ov; r\ xatriyv^rov;- 

! 2 Oino; (JtXv Tguricr-a Qor.v dva. vya. fjt,iXatva.v 
'Hq^uwoto; xiXaouZ, ihuibn;, wpywro V ohf/.vi 
' Af&Geofflri' votvra; 2; rdtyo; Xo.p>i vrdvra; 1%'ovra.;. 
'Aurix.ce, V 6.xpora.rov Tagd Ictt'iov t!*sruvvff0ii 
* AfiTiXo; 'ivSa. xcti iv6a, xa.rizo'/;p,va>vro }>\ woXXot 
Bo-out;' a.fjt.(^ Irrov fjc'iXa.; ilXitrtfiTO xitrco;. 

Hymn, Dion. 35-40. 
3 'A/aQi xvfciQvvirm ffaotpfiova. SvfAov 'i^ovTct, 
"Eerruv al^' ixT>~7iy(vTi;' o V i^aTi'v/]; z<z-ogov(ra; 
A(>%ov £>.'• oi £s xaxov fto'gov IZaXvovn;, 
HciVTi; opu; Tsi5»5-a», itu *%v, us ctXa Br«v, 
AiX<p7vi; V iy'ivovro 

Hymn, Dion. 49-53. 
Lucian very humorously carries out the Greek doctrine of sympathies in his 
dialogue between the Dolphin and Neptune : " Don't wonder," says the Dolphin (in 
allusion to his having rescued the harper Arion), " that we are well disposed to man- 
kind, since we ourselves, who are now fish, were once men." — rWs*S. xou AtXfmuv. 



46 



LEGEND OF DIONYSUS. 



The from going overboard, and made him " truly happy " 1 by thus addreSS- 
helmsman ing . 

saved. o 

Honest seaman, cheer thee now, 
Dear unto my heart art thou ! 2 

He then declares his name and lineage from Zeus and Cadmeian 
Semele ; and the hymnographer concludes by this parting doxology to 
the god : — 

Hail, fair son of Semele ! 
Ne'er may I forgetful be 
To warble forth sweet strains to thee. 3 

In this narrative the easy flow of language, and the simplicity of 
effect, form a striking contrast to the subsequent worship of the god, 
when all was frantic clamour, fury, and the very madness of inspira- 
tion ; nor is there anything of the dramatic complexity of plot exhibited 
by Euripides. 4 In the one instance, Silenus and his Bacchanals go 



Contrast of 
the Dionysus 



accounts of 
Dionysus. 

Usual tale. 



of Homer m quest of Dionysus, and, in the other, it is the hatred of Here, that 
Eai ides tne Plates to their plot against the god. The great diversity 

uripi es. ^ opinion w hich prevailes ' relative to the birthplace of Dionysus is a 
singular feature in his history. His great mythologic lineaments, how- 
various ever, are all of an oriental cast. By some he is described as the son 
of Indus. 5 But the usual tale makes him the son of Semele, by Zeus. 
Here, jealous of the beautiful favourite of the Thunderer, induced her 
to request a visit from Zeus in all his majesty and glory. After 
repeatedly entreating Semele to desist from this request, but in vain, 
Zeus at length yielded, and appeared to her in lightnings and thunders. 
Seized by the vivid fires, and overpowered by the unearthly spectacle, she 
gave premature birth to her offspring, Dionysus. We have noticed the 
saving of the child by Zeus, and the legend of the thigh (Meros), and its 
connexion with the fabulous Indian mountain of that name. We are 
Greek told Dionysus derived his name from the city of Nysa, situated on this 
etymology of mountain. The most famous incident in his wandering's is his expe- 

Dioirvsus. tt • • • i or k x • 

ditaon to India, which lasted, it is said, nity-two years. It is not a 

K«t«£, a word which Greek Lexicons pronounce to be " corrupt or unknown," is 
clearly the termination of the form mar-cator; it is used in a familiar way, as 
Tony for Antony. The crew of the ship was Tyr-rhenian, which establishes their 

dialect. A form of this vocable is also found in the Arab. j£ (catto), Vir qui 

multum colligit et lucratur (Kamus) ; vide Freytag also, sub. v. Connected with 
this root also is the Latin Cater-va, Gaelic Catheran, Saxon gaderian, and English 
gather. What was the Gaelic Gatheran is well known. The Mar-cator pursued 
his roving profession by sea ; he was Mare-cator. combining the characteristics of 
pirate and trader. Mer-cer, and Mer-cator, are offshoots of the term. 

3 X«/£S <r'i7to; Si/ntX*]; ib&ivri^ov ovVi cry taTit, 
"2no yX Xn&opzvov yXvuiom xoo-fAWKi ap^n*. 

Hymn, Dion. 58, 59. 

* Eurip. Cvc. 112 ; Baccha?, 286. 

5 Philostr.Vit. Apoll. ii. 9. 6 Diod. iii. 63 ; iv. 3. 



LEGEND OF DEMETER. 



47 



little singular that the surname of Dio-nichi should still be used to Indian 
designate Siva, the Indian Bacchus. Dionysus, in his conquest of surname - 
India, was accompanied by a host of Satyrs, Pans, and Sylvans. 1 This Grand 
closely resembles the great expedition of Hanuman, the Simian chief, of^Sf^s 
with an army composed of the same description of warriors, recorded and analogy, 
in the Ramayuna of Valmiki. A singular parallel to the tale of 
Semele's death is also seen in the Indian myth of Parvati, who be- 
lieving that her child was an extraordinary prodigy, requested the 
great deity, Shuni (Saturn), to look at it. The god, knowing that his 
gaze would be destruction, refused compliance, but the importunate 
mother would not be denied. At length, giving way to her entreaties, feme°l and 
he looked upon the infant, whose head was instantly consumed to Parvati. 
ashes. 

As Dionysus was considered by Pindar as the companion deity of 
Demeter in his worship, we shall follow this arrangement, as seen in 
his Isthmian Ode, 2 and present the reader with the Homeric legend 
of Demeter. 

THE LEGEND OF DEMETER. 

The origin of the popular Athenian belief- in the mysteries of Origin of the 
Eleusis is well portrayed in the Homeric hymn j Persephone, the Atti^beiief 
daughter of Demeter, had been seized by Hades, while gathering in Demeter. 
flowers in a meadow, in company with the Nymphs of Ocean. The 
struggling Persephone vainly shrieked, invoking the aid of her father, Persephone 
Zeus ; from him no help could be expected ; he it was who caused canied off - 
those flowers to grow which had tempted her virgin fancy, and he 
had agreed to give the maid to Hades. 

Her cries were heard by Helios and Hecate only ; and Demeter, 
distracted at the loss of her daughter, wandered in quest of her for 
nine days and nights, her sorrowing path lighted by torches ; but with- 
out success. No nectar nor ambrosia did she taste, and she bathed not 
on her toilsome journey. On the tenth day she met Hecate, who 
informed her that the cries of Persephone had been heard, but that 
she did not know by whom she had been carried off. At length they 
both repaired to Helios, "the spy of gods and men," 3 and standing Demeter 
before his steeds coniured him to reveal who it was. whether god or and locate 

J 7 o repair to 

man, who had carried her off. Helios replied that Hades was the Helios, 
ravisher, and with the consent of Zeus. Indignant at the treachery of 

1 Strabo, xi. p. 505. — The Sylvans of Valmiki were, as usual, an express crea- 
tion for an express object. 

Te gujachulasunkasan vuyooshmunta muhabula 
Rukshuvanurogopoochcha kshipramunvabhijugnire. 

Bam. B. i. Sect. 15, Slok. 17. 
These ursine and simian warriors and gopoochas, in bulk equal 
to elephants or mountains, and of vast prowess, were quickly gene- 
rated. 

2 ^aX*o*«arow vrupihpov An/xwrspc;. Isth. vi. 3. 

3 Hymn, Dem. 62. 



48 



LEGEND OF DEMETER. 



Demeter at 
Eleusis. 



Fictitious 
account 
given of 
herself by 
Demeter. 



Demeter 
nurse to 
Demophoon. 



DfmophoOn. 
how reared. 



Metaneira 
watches the 
goddess. 



the son of Saturn, Demeter, entirely separated from the council of the 
Immortals and from glorious Olympus, wandered amongst mankind 
in sorrow, till her form could be no longer recognised. At length she 
came to Eleusis, at that time under the sway of the warlike Celeus. 
Here, disguised as an old woman, she sat down by the road side, 
close to a well, beautifully shaded by olives. Hither the blooming 
daughters of Celeus soon came with their pails of brass for water, 
and, on seeing her, inquired who and whence she was, and why, thus 
aged, she was so far from hospitable shelter? To this the goddess 
replied : — 

Deo my name — such my chaste mother gave, 
But now from Creta, o'er the sea's broad ridge 
I come — no will of mine. Me forced by might 
Compulsive, pirate robbers dragged away. 
Then, with swift sail, at Thoricus they touched, 
Where crowding females on the sands debarked. 
Themselves the crew, hard by the hawser, there 
Prepared their evening meal. But me no thought 
Of cheering food possessed. In secret I 
Sprang forward o'er the dusky land, and 'scaped 
My haughty masters. 1 

The goddess then solicited employment as a servant. The daughters 
of Celeus persuaded their mother, Metaneira, to accept her services in 
the capacity of nurse to Demophoon, their infant brother. Here, with 
paleness on her cheek, her noble form bowed down by protracted 
sorrow, the once majestic Demeter remained a long time in silence, 
refusing to be seated on the splendid couch before her, nor would she 
smile nor taste food, until the prudent lambe, the maid servant, by 
playful caresses and jests, succeeded in rendering her more calm and 
cheerful. 2 Now nursed on the fragrant bosom of the goddess, the 
infant Demophoon grew up like a god ; he tasted no food, however, 
but he was anointed with ambrosia, and by night, unknown to his 
parents, he was plunged into fire, like a torch. " And now," says 
the poet, " would the goddess have made him exempt from age, and 
immortal," had not the fair Metaneira, indiscreetly watching by night 
from her fragrant chamber, beheld the act. With the deepest horror 
and anguish of soul, she shrieked aloud, when the indignant goddess, 
setting the infant on the ground, said, " Know that, but for thy indis- 
cretion, I had procured immortality for thy dear son. Yet shall he be 

1 A'/ieu ift'oiy ovofjt,' Iffrr to yag 6'zto vrorvta [AWTyg. 

Nvv U.VTI K^ttjS-sv scr' ibgia. iiutoc SocXacrcr'/is 
*HXi>6ov ovk IBiXouo-oc, fir/i ccixouo-av oLvayxri 
"Av^sj Xwio-ttiois airriyocyov ol f4.lv inura, 

N??/" S<?5? Qogix'ovbi x-a.Tho'y^&ov tvSoo yuvcctxs; 

'Umigov iv&fiyiffav ccoXXiss, r/Ss xou aiiroi 

Aimvov iwijoruvovro "ffaga. Tgvfivno-ta vnos. 

'AXX' Xfj-oi oh "hooffoio ftiXiipgovos rigu.ro Sufjcos 

AoiSgn ogfA-'/iS-iio-et rifftigoio ftiXxivn; 

$iuyov vir'io(pi<xXov; <rriU.dvTooa.z 

2 Hymn, Dem. 204. 



LEGEND OF DEMETER. 



49 



ever honoured, because he has sat upon my knees, and has been 
cradled in my arms. I am the venerated Demeter, the joy and help 
of gods and men. But, come, let the united people erect my temple Demeter 
and my altars above the fount Callichoras ; I myself will order the herself, 
method of their sacrifice, and the means of propitiating my favour." 
The goddess now ended, and revealed herself in all her majestic 
grandeur : — 

Changed form and stature now, 

Age vanished from her brow, 
And beauty breathed around. 
Forth from her fragrant robes sweet perfumes flowing 
Far flashed the goddess-form with splendour glowing. 

Whilst golden o'er her shoulders flow 

Those radiant locks unbound ; 

And as the lightnings blind the gaze, 

So filled those halls the frequent blaze. 1 

The goddess now left the palace, and so terrified was Metaneira, Metaneira 
that in her speechless fright she was unable to raise her son from the goddess. 1 "* 
ground. Her daughters now 
entered, and proceeded to tend 
the child; they could not, how- 
ever, soothe their infant brother 
- — he had lost his divine nurse. 
Demeter now took up her abode 
in the temple built for her by 
Celeus; but still indignant with 
Jove, and pining for her daughter, 
she withheld her bounteous aid 
from mankind for a whole year 
— a year full of dreadful want. 
She suffered not the seed to 
spring from the earth ; and had 
not Zeus pacified her, the human 
race must have perished from 
starvation. Vainly did Zeus send 
Iris and all the train of deities ; 
the recovery of her daughter 
would alone satisfy her. Hermes 
was now despatched in earnest 
to Hades ; and Persephone most 
joyfully accompanied the imperial 
messenger on his return. De- 
meter hailed the restoration of her daughter with transports of joy. 

1 [Asyitlo; x.ca ubos aLfAi^zv 

'O^fi'/i y ipiooitrtja, §v/i'iv<tu)v oLto ttsttXuv 
'SxfivuTO <r>j/U (p'iyyos uto p^^oc$ o.Sotvecroio 
Aa^frs SeS;, §<zvS«) £s xopou xxrzvr,vo$iv Mutiny 
Avyris V inX-na^n ttvkivos Youos^ cx.tr <ri(?ox"/is us. 

[h. g.] e 




50 



LEGEND OF DEMETER. 



Return of _ Now, rendered placable, the goddess again exercised her powers, 
Persephone. ^ deeming earth was speedily covered with fruits and flowers. 

Gladly would she have retained Persephone for ever by her side; 
but this was impracticable; and it was finally arranged that Per- 
sephone should depart from her every spring, at seed-time, and 




Demeter 
communi- 
cates her 
sacred rites. 



Privileged 
families. 



Post- 
prophetic 
principle of 
the legend. 



Preservation 
of a grand 
doctrine in 
the legend. 



should pass one-third of the year in the palace of Hades. Demeter 
now prepared for her return to Olympus; and on the eve of her 
departure, she imparted to her devotees, Celeus and his daughters, and 
to Triptolemus, Diocles, and Eumolpus, the divine solemnities which 
were to be maintained in her worship. 1 All things thus arranged, she 
now repaired to the assembly of the blessed gods. So commenced 
the sacred Eleusinian Mysteries ; and certainly, in the whole circuit of 
the Delian hymnography, there is no temple legend more pictorial in 
its effect, nor better supported by local and representative associations. 

The privileged families of Eumolpus, Diocles, and Triptolemus, 
continued their hereditary functions at the Eleusinia, and to the 
national faith was added the charm of historical truth, by the existence 
of the well still shaded by the olive-trees, the stream Callichorus, and 
the prominent temple-hill. This myth is a strong instance of the 
post-prophetic principle, where legend does not spring from, but is 
cut out expressly for, locality. 2 Still its object was answered; national 
feeling was impressed, and national imagination affected ; to the devout 
worshipper, the most sacred romance became the most faithful history. 
The religious dignity of Demeter is evidenced by her temple at Ther- 
mopylae where the Amphictyonic council assembled. One great 
doctrinal point of this myth, unconsciously preserved by the poet, 

1 Hymn, Dem. 475. 

2 Of this principle Virgil has ably availed himself in his prophecy of the " Trojan 
Caesar." 



LEGEND OF DEMETER. 



51 



is the purifying influence of fire. Demophoon is plunged in the fire, 
to be purified for immortality - ; the same process, for the same pur- 
pose, is applied to Achilles by Thetis. In both cases, we have the 
Indian 1 and wide-spread oriental doctrine of fire as the great moral 
purifier, varied in the instance of Achilles by the application of water, 
another purifier : here he is plunged into the river Styx. 2 But there 
was yet another method of imparting immortality to human nature. 
This consisted in the simple will and pleasure of the friendly deity, as 
in the case of Ganymede, or in that of Tithonus, 3 where a nice dis- 
tinction is drawn between an immortality of youth and an immortality Nice 
of old age — a distinction clearly noted in the early epic of India. In j,! s mc lons 
the Ramayuna we are introduced to the hundred daughters of the immortality, 
royal sage Koosha Nabha, maidens who 

In lovely form unmated through the earth, 
Shone like the beaming stars amid the clouds. 4 

Vaya thus addresses them : — 

My consorts be ye all ! 

Resign humanity, the immortal life 
Assume. Forever fleeting 'midst mankind 
Is youth ! Unfading youth receive, and be 
Immortal. 5 

We learn from Aristophanes 6 that the Eleusinian legend gave rise Primitive 
to a kind of primitive melodrama, in which the character of Iambe na°nb? m ' 1 
was played by some shrewd individual in female attire, posted on the 
bridge over the Cephissus, whence he addressed with sarcastic jokes 
the Eleusinian procession as it was passing on its way. 7 As might be 
anticipated, so august a divinity would be gladly claimed by various 
localities, as participating in the hospitality of special families at the 
time of her earthly sojourn. Hence the Megareans supported the 
dignity of the Demetrion, or temple of Demeter, near their city ; Local 
whilst the ancient gens, called the Phytalids, attached much import- f^'reh^ious 
ance to their family on account of the reception of the goddess by importance. 
Phy talus, their ancestor, on which occasion she first presented mankind 
with the fruit of the fig-tree. 8 

1 For the purifiers of embodied spirits (sooddheh kartrinidehinam), vide Manavah 
Dherma Sastra, c. v. Slok. 105. Vide also Hindu Mythol. article Agni. 

2 Fulgent. Myth. iii. 7. 

3 Horn. Hymn in Yen. 219. Apollod. iii. 12, sec. 4, Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 18. 

4 1st Book Ramayuna. 

5 Sarva bharya mama bhavishya 

Manushyastyajatan bhava divanaysarvapsyatha, 
Chalan hi yuvanam nityam manuseshu viseshitah 
Ukshayan yuvanam prapta amaryaschan bhavishya. 

6 Aristoph. Vesp. 1363. Vide also Suidas, yiQvpi£m. 

7 The reader who wishes further information on this myth may consult Preller, 
"Demeter und Persephone, ein Cyclus myth, untersuch." Hamb. 1837, 8vo. 

8 Paus. i. 37, 2. 

E 2 



52 



LEGEND OF APOLLO. 



Homeric 
legend of 
Apollo. 



stcCTdo* 11 ^ e mcor P ora ti° n of Eleusis with Athens gave the Athenians, like- 
agricuiturai wise, an opportunity of claiming the merit of being the uniting link 
claims. between gods and man, by communicating to the world at large the 
vast blessings of agriculture, which the goddess Demeter had first 
revealed to Triptolemus at Eleusis, by disclosing to him the art of 
sowing corn. 

THE LEGEND OF APOLLO. 
We now proceed to notice another celestial personage of vast im- 
portance, not only in the Greek mythical world, but also, inferentially, 
in his political bearing upon the oracles of Greece. 

In the devotional feeling of Hellas, however secondary to Zeus 
might have been the state and dignity of 
Apollo, no deity so prominently called 
forth the piety of his votaries, and none 
ever elicited such mingled sympathy and 
awe. From the first sentiment, the innate 
elegance of Hellenic genius was called 
forth by the patron god of music and of 
poetry ; by the latter, faith in the oracles 
of Phoebus was made more implicit, and 
devotion more profound. This twofold 
character of graceful dignity and religious 
force is beautifully portrayed by the blind 
bard of the Isle of Delos, at whose in- 
spiring note creation gives forth the 
trumpet-call of glorious praise. After 
struggling with the majesty of his 
theme, the poet bursts forth with a 
magnificent exordium : — 
With thee each rock, each headland brow 
Of lofty mountains rang ; 
While rivers in their seaward flow, 
And toppling cliffs with waves below, 
And creeks, thy praises sang. 1 

But how came it to pass that a deity of such majesty and power 
should be born in so rugged and barren a spot as the Isle of Delos ? 2 
This the poet proceeds to explain. Among the numerous beautiful 
favourites of Zeus, Leto and Demeter occupied a prominent position ; 
,'s by the first of whom he had Apollo, so illustrious in the Hellenic de- 
votional calendar. Harassed 3 by the persecuting jealousy of Here, the 

1 Tla.cra.1 Hi ffKowtcLi roi cchov xcci ftpe&ovts ecxooi 
'T-^yiXcov ogitov, '7TOTa.fjt.oi tLXoCbi •zrpopiovnc, 
'Axtch <t us uXci xixXiftivcu, Xift'ivz; ri $6cWa.<r<n;. 

Hymn, Apoll. 22-4. 

2 V. 27, ut supra. 

3 In several Myths, Leto and her two children, Artemis and Apollo, are repre- 
sented as pursued by the serpent, Pytho. Vide p. 53. 




of Leto. 



LEGEND OF APOLLO. 



53 




consort of Zeus, Leto wandered distractedly over the earth, unable to 
find a spot for the birthplace of her offspring. Many were the places 
in Greece and its islands, and on the coast of Asia, to which the dis- 
tracted wanderer in vain repaired for shelter. The fury of Here was L - t5 iepairs 
not to be lightly braved, and everywhere Leto was repulsed. Heart- toDeios. 
broken, as a last resource, 
she turned her steps to- 
wards the barren Isle of 
Delos, promising that, if 
protection were granted, 
she would make this the 
site of the wealthy shrine 
of Apollo. The condition 
was joyfully accepted, and 
here her babe was born. 
Scarcely had the divine 
infant tasted the immortal 
nectar and ambrosia, when 
he sprang into the full 
splendour of vigorous ma- 
turity — the Harp, the Bow, the Prophetic office were at once pre- 
eminently his own, and Delos in after ages became the glorious resort 
of the Hellenic race, where flourished periodically the magnificent 
festivities of the Ionians in honour of his name. So nobly exhilarating Ionian 
were these solemnities, with their displays of dance, song, and athletic Jf Dd!o!^ 
rivalry, that the poet thus describes, in glowing language, their effect 
upon the spectator : — 

Untouched by age — immortal would he deem 

Ionia's sons, could he but greet them then ; 
The grace combined might scan ; his breast would teem 

With joy, each manly form, each lovely maid to ken ; 

The swift- winged barks, and boundless wealth of men. 1 

Still as the deity benignly vouchsafed to reveal to the human race the 
will of his father Zeus, a propitious spot for his oracle was to be 
found. Wide was the range of country passed over by the " god of Apollo at 
the silver bow," till at length, having reached the sweet fountain of e p usa ' 
Telphusa, he was about to fix his oracle at the charming spot, when 
the nymph, jealous of the beauty of her favourite place, began to 
insinuate that the horses which watered at her stream would destroy 
the hallowed tranquillity of his shrine. The god was persuaded. The At 
southern verge of Parnassus, where, amid lofty and overhanging cliffs, Parnassus - 

1 k aJotvocrovs kou a.yv^ai; zftfttvou othl, 

"Oj TOT \fftt.Vrt£ffU, OT 'l«0V£J U.§Q00i UtV. 

Tlccvruv ya,(> Kiv Tboira ;^a£<v, Ti^ctiro %\ 0uftov, 
' \vhpot; t htrogooJV, xocX\i£covov; <rs kou yvvouxoii, 
NsJ«s t UKitoc; O.WTUV Krripoaret. voXXa,. 

Horn. Hymn, Apoll. 152. 



54 



LEGEND OF APOLLO. 



Slays the 
serpent. 



Destroys the 
fountain of 
Telphusa. 



Chooses 
priests for 
his temple. 



Metamor- 
phosed to a 
dolphin. 



Apollo 
reveals 
himself. 



The crew 
become his 
priests. 



there reigned an awful solemnity, seemed an appropriate site for his 
oracle. On viewing it, the deity exclaimed — 

Here do I plan to rear my noble shrine, 

An Oracle for mortals, who shall aye 

Hither their perfect hecatombs lead forth, 

They who the wealthy isle of Pelops hold, 

Or Europe and her island waters claim. 1 

He now approached the deep recesses of Parnassus; its rock- 
fountain was guarded by a tremendous serpent, the identical nurse of 
the prodigious Typhaon, formerly blasted with lightning by his father 
Zeus. Apollo now took aim at, and slew, the deadly monster, leaving 
its huge carcase to putrify in the sun. The temple of the archer-god 
now rapidly rose, under the guidance of the Orchomenian Trophonius 
and Agamedes, whose vicinity sent forth a multitude of eager hands 
to assist in the holy work. Meanwhile Apollo discovered the inte- 
rested fraud of the nymph Telphusa, to whom he repaired with indig- 
nant haste. " Telphusa," said he, " thou shalt not carry out thy 
fraud, by retaining this lovely spot and beautiful water ; know that the 
glory of this spot shall be mine, and not thine, alone." The far-darter 
ended, and tumbling down a craggy point, completely blocked up the 
stream, and erected an altar for himself, in a thick grove hard by a fair 
fountain, " where mankind still worship the princely Apollo Telphusius, 
so called from his indignant contempt of the nymph Telphusa." But 
the resistless power of the glorious god was to be still further displayed 
in the instantaneous conversion of a whole band of roving mariners into 
the select priests of his temple ; for of these he had, as yet, selected 
none. From his lofty watch-tower he espies a tall bark sailing from 
Crete to the Peloponnesus. His form is changed ; now, like a huge 
dolphin, he throws the foam on high, shakes the vessel to its centre, 
and terrifies the crew, driving the ship with a mighty hurricane along 
the rugged coast of the Peloponnesus. On, on she glides, with resist- 
less power, through the foaming Corinthian Gulf, till she reaches the 
harbour of Crissa, where she grounds. A youth of glorious form 
is seen on the shore ; it is Apollo. He inquires of the terrified crew, 
who were too much affrighted to come on shore, who they were, 
and their object. The Cretan captain related their marvellous and 
irresistible voyage. Apollo now revealed himself, pointing out his own 
agency in the miraculous voyage, and their future exalted sacrificial 
duties. He told them they must never think of returning to their 
much-loved native place, or their dear wives; all was to be given up 
to the honour of his rich shrine. They showed a cheerful obedience 
to his commands : furling the sails, they drew the ship high on the 

"Efif&zvai av&gwz'ois xp^ tr ' r ^"' v > °' <rs f 60 ' a<£ ' 
'EvSaJ 1 dywritroutrt nXn'itrtrus IxuroftfZctSy 
'Hftiv oa-oi niXorfovvtio-ov vrhi^ctv i-fcovow, 

'H^ otroi Evgeuirnv nri xou af&tpigvrct; xa.ro. vriffovs-~x. r. A- 

Hymn, Apoll. 287. 



LEGEND OF APOLLO. 



55 



beach, reared an altar by the side of their sable bark, and, pouring out 
a libation to the immortal gods, indulged in a genial feast : — 

Thus nobly feasted, cheered with wine, They follow 

Led by Jove's princely son divine, Apollo to the 

That wonderous harper, lyre in hand, Parnassus. 

Strode grandly on ; the Cretan band 

Danced following to the holy land. 

Crete's Paean-minstrels hymned the god, 

Within whose breasts the mellow flood 

Of song the goddess Muse had poured : 

Their step untoiled that upwards soared, 

Soon scaled Parnassus' crested hill, 

The lovely spot where they should dwell, 

By crowding pilgrims honoured still. 1 

He showed them his rich temple, and the site of his Oracle, at the 
view of which their inmost affections were moved towards Apollo. 
" But now," they inquired, " since you have brought us so far from 
our beloved friends and native land, how are we to subsist ? Here is 
neither land for the vine, nor corn, nor pasture." " Foolish mortals," Sacerdotal 
replied the god, smiling, " ye who anticipate only severe toils and ^tsHtence 
privations, I will show you an easier course, and do you remember it and office 
well : with the knife in your right hand, ye shall always have abund- pointed out- 
ance of cattle, which the pious shall bring to my shrine for sacrifice. 
Your duty will be to guard my temple, and to receive the pilgrims 
who crowd hither. But if ye be guilty of wrong, in word or deed, to 
others — 

Then ye, for ever and for aye, 

Shall groan in bondage 'neath their sway. 

Tis said. My word within your bosoms weigh." 2 

In Homer, Apollo and Helios, or the Sun, are perfectly distinct ; 
and this distinction subsisted for several centuries after the great poet. 
A fragment of an ancient Doric hymn, however, 3 declares the oracle 
of Delphi to have been founded by the Hyperboreans, whence also 
Leto is said to have come. This again takes us over the track of the 
Indian immigration. The Indian, like the subsequent Greek system, 
makes Surya the personification of the Sun ; he is represented seated 

1 Avra.^ Toffios xa.) C&virvo$ iZ, 'igov %vto 

Bav p '/fih YiP^l 8* atyiv <Lva\, Ato; vto?, ' Air'oWuv* 
io^ftiyy \v •£i!giir<riv s%wv, oLyocTov xt^api^uv, 
Ka-Xa. xa.) u-^/i (Zi(ix;' oi %\ pno-irovTig 'iwovro 
KpTjTi; irpoi IJvSa, xa.) Inwawov ols/$o» 
OJoi n Kpnruv iraunova, eitfire Movtra. 
'En <r<rn6z<r<riv 'iQwxi fjt,ik'tynpm cLodw 
1 Axftrtroi Ti XoQov fpotrifiav, a-l^a, T "ixovro 
Tiapywlv xa.) %a(>ov iTygarov, svB- oip' 'iftiXXov 

OlXfltrUV VfoXXOIffi Ti TiTlfliVOI O.V 4 ] ^U<71 '01 IV. 

Hymn, Apoll. 513. 

2 T&iy vt" 1 a.vayxa.'tv\ *b{b(jt. , ri<Ti<rff v/aura. Tavra.. 
E'/pyiTui toi vavTX- <ru h (bpiff) ami <pvXaZ,u,i. 

Hymn, Apoll. 543-545. 

3 Paus. x. 5. 



56 



LEGEND OF HERMES. 



in his splendid car drawn by a seven-headed horse ; and his simi- 
larity to the Greek system is seen in the following invocation from 
the Sanscrit, by Sir W. Jones : — 

But oh ! what pencil of a living star 
Could paint that gorgeous car, 
In which, as in an ark supremely bright, 
The lord of boundless light 
Ascending calm o'er the empyrean sails, 
And with ten thousand beams his awful 
beauty veils ! 

The accompanying cut, of which 
the original was discovered at Por- 
tici, gives a spirited idea both of the 
Greek and Eoman conception of this 
important divinity. In the " Legends 
of Heroes " he plays an important part, 
particularly in the siege of Troy. 




Legend of 
Hermes. 



Appropriate 
duties of the 
hymno- 
grapher. 



Mercurial 
accomplish- 
ments of the 
deity. 



Meets a 
tortoise. 



THE LEGEND OF HERMES. 
Notwithstanding the national veneration of the Greeks for their 
divinities, just in proportion as they were a people of quick feelings, 
just so they scrupled not to enjoy heartily any ludicrous trait of cha- 
racter, national or divine. Hence, while the deepest veneration accom- 
panied their ideas of Zeus and Apollo, they freely amused themselves 
with the trickish knavery and ingenious qualifications of Hermes. 
In fact, it was the appropriate business of the admiring hymnographer 
to place the god in that very point of view which would best display 
his most distinguishing characteristics. In accordance with this feeling, 
the minstrel of Delos speaks out freely, and sings of Hermes with all 
the jovial carelessness of good-fellowship subsisting between the 
sportive deity and mankind. After invoking the Muse, and giving 
the usual genealogy, the poet merrily leads off the juggling adventures 
of this smooth-tongued and acquisitive god by a very comprehensive 
though rapid summary of his accomplishments : — 

Born with the dawn, at mid-day perfect harper, 
At eve — Apollo's oxen, stole the sharper. 1 

One of the first specimens of his ingenuity and casuistry was his 
turning to a musical purpose a tortoise which he met on the threshold. 
No sooner had the acquisitive son of Zeus, the patron god of luck, set 
eyes upon the animal, than, considering its appearance as a token of 
good fortune, he exclaimed, smiling, — 

Hail thou charming creature, hail 

Tortoise of the varied shell ! 

Glad appearing to my glance, 

Sounding at the choral dance, 
Companion of the feast ! 

1 'Heofg yiyovu;, (/.tirw fifteen \y>ti6a,oi%,iv, 

'EffTTigiOi (iov; xkiipiv ixwfidkov 'Airokkaivos. 



LEGEND OF HERMES. 



57 



Whence, thou toy of fair delight, 
Tortoise-dweller of the height ? 
Useful soon shalt thou become, 
Nay — I'll bear thee to my home, 
Nor scorn thee, first of luck to come I 1 

This was followed up by the consoling casuistry that " a dead tor- Makes a 
toise, made musical, was preferable to a live one that was dumb." 2 ^trument 
His ingenious musical discovery proves a splendid invention, and it is of its shell, 
now duly deposited in his cradle. But scarcely had the sun descended, 
when the gifted rogue, fall of deep subtlety, plans a nocturnal raid 
upon the cattle of Apollo : — 

Now sank the sun to ocean o'er the earth, Carries off 

With steeds and car. Meanwhile the shady heights ^ e ° xen of 

Pierian of the Eternals, Hermes gained, ^ 
Where the immortal beeves o' the blessed gods 
Were folded, pasturing lovely meadows pure. 
From these, 'twas now the keen-eyed Argicide, 
The son of Maia, fifty lowing beeves 
Off-severed from the herd. 3 

Apollo, in the mean time, by virtue of his prophetic powers, discovers 
the plunderer, and, after considerable trouble, makes his appearance 
in the cave of Cyllene. The affected innocent is lying in his cradle ; 
notwithstanding, the god of the silver-bow indignantly exclaims — 

Boy, in thy cradle lying ! haste, point out Is visited and 

My oxen, or we both, indecorous, soon threatened 

Fall out. Thee, seized, to gloomy Tartarus y po 

I whirl — a darkness dire and hopeless. Nor 

Thy mother to the light, nor e'en thy sire, 

Shall set thee free ; but thou beneath the earth 

Shalt wander roaming, guide to mortals few. 4 

In spite of this direct charge, the child with stubborn effrontery 
denies the theft, and even affects to consider it as a ridiculous im- 
possibility. Soon, however, he is detected by Zeus, and is forced to 

1 Xa^s, (pyjjy ^o^oirvrs, Ixiros \txIqyi, 

'Atr-ruffl*! n^otyxvuffX' vrb'fav <rohi xxXov olfogftx, 
'AioXov o/rr^xxov, iffffi %iXvs a^icti ^uouaa ; 
'AXX' o't'tru <r is $a>/xx Xccfiwv otyiXos ti pot 'iirirn, 
Ovo" ctirorifA'/iffti)' <ru Yi tf^ario-rov ovwus. 
2 Horn. Hymn, Herm. 37, 38. 

3 'HiXios fttv '£hvvi xxrx%Qovos 'Clx&xvnv^l 
Avtoio-iv 3-' iTTonri xxi otpfAxriv xvrxg a.£ 'Egftqg 

Tlil(>'tY)S xQlXXVZ S'lCOV OQIX O-XIOiVTX, 
"Evdx SiUV (AXHXpUV fi'olS X^lh^OTOI xuXiv ifciffXOV, 

JSotrxo/Aivxi Xtfjbiuvxs xxygxxivs igxravovs. 
luv rori Mxix^os v'ios ivtrxo^ros ' A(>yii(povrvis, 
Hivryxovr' oLysXys a,<x , trx/ji.viro (iovs fyipvxous* 
4 *fi or«r, os iv X'ixvtk> xxrxxuxi fivivvt fjcoi (iovs 
Gxtro-ov \<jt& Tci%x vui ^loiro/atS-' ou xxrx xbtrpov, 
'Plij/oj yxg trt Xxficov is Txgrxgov feoo&v<rx, 
'Ej £«<p«v xWofAo^ov xxi xfAYt^xvev ovbi a ftriryig 
'Ej Qxos, ovh'i Txrrig xvxXvfftrxi, oiXX' vto yx'iy 
'Eppwas, oXiyoiiriv \v xvh(>xo-iv viyef&onvwv. 



58 



LEGEND OF HERMES. 



Exchange of 
gifts under 
the sanction 
of Zeus. 



Frank 
Homeric 
character of 
Hermes. 



Main points 
in the 
character 
of Hermes. 



disclose the hiding-place in which he has deposited the cattle. Shortly 
after this occurrence, Apollo is so deeply fascinated with the lyre of 
Hermes, and so eager to possess it, that he readily pardons the mal- 
versation of the young lyrist, and is desirous of gaining his friendship. 
Hermes now surrenders to Apollo the lyre, and receives in exchange 

the golden rod of wealth, the sove- 
reignty over flocks and herds, and the 
guardianship of the woodland tribes. 
Zeus approves of and sanctions the 
arrangement. But the keen, bargain- 
striking divinity is not forgetful of his 
own interests, for he strives hard to 
obtain from Apollo the gift of pro- 
phecy. The latter is specially pledged 
never to grant that high function to 
any deity whatever. Notwithstanding, 
he creates Hermes the messenger of 
the gods to Hades. So little con- 
fidence has Apollo in Hermes, that 
he is still apprehensive that this keen- 
witted deity may steal the lyre from 
him. Accordingly, he binds Hermes 
with a solemn oath by the infernal Styx 
never to pilfer his property nor invade 
his sanctuary. In return, Apollo gives 
a sacred promise to hold none dearer 
to himself, amongst gods or men, than 
Hermes. The Homeric lyrist then 
sums up the results of these counter- 
movements and interchanges of gifts, by observing frankly upon the 
character of Hermes : — 

Thus Maia's son Apollo loved, 

With favour marked, and Zeus approved, 

And so midst men and gods he roved ; 

But little good does he : 
For, in the darkling shades of night 
His countless frauds escape the sight 
Of frail humanity I 1 

This is the most ancient continuous description we possess of 
Hermes ; and his main distinctions are his bargaining, juggling, and 
inventive traits, dashed off by the poet with mingled honesty and 
archness. The author of the Iliad has not failed to specify, amongst 




II ex. v £ i 



ft tV VV V I V V) ff I, TO OLXglTOV tlffigOTtVtl 

Horn. Hymn, Eerm. 574-578. 



LEGEND OF HERMES. 



59 



other offices of Hermes, these prime qualities. 1 It is important to note 
the most ancient genealogy, which is to be found, not in the hymno- 
grapher just quoted, but in his predecessor, the author of the Odyssey. 2 

We have here demonstrated to us clearly the influence of that kindred Etymoio- 
spirit of etymologizing which ranges throughout the Hindoo and . 

o o o o tendencies, 

Grecian epic, upon which we shall often have occasion to remark, 
a spirit arising from the easy flexibility of those cognate dialects, and 
creating a similar taste in the poets of both nations. 3 

Hermes is said by Homer to be the son of Maia, and never did 
tradition better preserve an appropriate title, distinctive at once of 
mythologic source and the characteristic of the god. Maya is a Maya, an 
Sanscrit term, signifying " illusion," " a trick," " a juggler;" 4 and ^°^ n e . 
when Hermes is said to be the son of Maia, or, in other words, the its force! 
son of Illusion, it is nothing more than the usual oriental personification 
of that quality. The identity of the Hindoo with the early Greek 
mythology, will be evident when the reader recollects that Maya was 
the wife of Brahma. 

Hermes, like Apollo, burst at once into the full vigour of his deity ; instanta- 
there is, in either case, little or no intermediate process. Here, again, perfection 
we have the Indian epic model, where the divinities (as, again, in the of the 
case of Pallas Minerva) spring at once to the maturity of their functions ; J.Uc™ ortal 
in both cases the progenitor is divine, and his offspring participates in 
his nature. This is the doctrinal side of the myth, stamped by tra- 
dition on the Hellenic mind, but received with the implicit belief of 
personality. The case is altered in the heroic legend. There the hero, Heroic gifts 
partaking more fully of the human essence, gradually expands into § radual - 
maturity. Heracles, however mighty in the cradle, goes through the 
ordinary process of increasing growth and vigour. The first is of 
purely mental, the second of physical mould ; the first is the Indian, 
the second the Hellenic type. 

In addition to the characteristics of Hermes laid down by the hymn other charac- 
just quoted, he is the herald of the gods and the patron of eloquence ; 5 Herm5s.° f 
is the author of various inventions, as the syrinx, the alphabet, astro- 
nomy, music, and gymnastics ; 6 is the escort of the shades ; 7 and so 

1 II. v. 390 ; xxiv. 24. 

2 Odys. viii. 335; xiv. 435; xxiv. 1. 

3 Brahma purposed to create a son who should be like himself. A youth of 
purple complexion appeared crying with a weak cry and running about. " Why 
weepest thou?" said Brahma. " Give me a name," answered the youth. " Let 
Hudra be thy name." (From " Rud" to cry, and " Dru" to run). 

4 Thus i^3j>\ ^)\ the son of the time being, i.e. a flatterer or sycophant. 

— Ibn zaka, the Child of the Sun, i.e. Aurora, or the Dawn. — Ibn al inab, the Son 
of the Grape, i.e. Wine. And so of the relative term " Father." Thus, Abu '1 
Mallh, the Father of the Charming, i.e. the Lark, / *)\\*\ ^\ ; the Father of 
Desires, i.e. a Lover. 

5 II. iv. 193 ; vii. 279. 6 Hygin. Fab. 277 ; Plut. Sympos. ix. 3. 
7 ~Stx^oTo(ATo;, ■^vxoKofst.'jros. Horn. Od. xxiv. 1, 9. 



60 



LEGEND OF POSEIDON". 



Typical 
promise of 
Hermes. 



versatile are his talents, that he tries his hand as cupbearer and 
charioteer. 1 

The promise given by Hermes to Apollo to respect his sanctuary 
at Delphi, seems typical of that caution with which the thief, single- 
handed, ever abstained from laying pilfering hands upon the treasures 
of Apollo; which, though sometimes plundered, were seized by a 
powerful force. 




PoseidOn. 



Rank of 
Poseidon. 



Position of 
his palace. 



THE LEGEND OF POSEIDON. 

Second in power to Zeus alone was Poseidon, the mighty Enosich- 
thon, or " Shaker of the Earth." By his imperial consort, Amphitrite, 
he had three children, 2 and by other divinities and nymphs of mortal 
birth a numerous progeny, the greater proportion men of heroic mould 
and of vast corporeal powers. Perhaps the most prominent individual 
of this race is the gigantic cyclops Polyphemus, 3 whose portrait is so 
vigorously drawn by Homer, and whose sufferings at the hand of 
Odysseus, his father so bitterly avenged. In the most ancient poems, 
Poseidon is described as being equal in dignity to Zeus, though inferior 
in power to the mighty Thunderer. 4 Notwithstanding, Poseidon 
scruples not occasionally to utter threats against his lordly brother ; 
and on one occasion we find him uniting in the grand conspiracy of 
the gods and goddesses to bind and overthrow the sovereign of the 
skies. 5 -<Egse, in Eubcea, claimed the poetic dignity of providing a 

1 Horn. Odys. i. 143 ; II. xxiv. 178, 140. For the whole range of his offices 
the reader is referred to the classical writers, or a complete system of mythology. 
Valuable figured illustrations will be found in Hirt's Mythol. Bild. 

2 Triton, Rhode, and Benthesicume. Hes. Theog. 230. 

3 The Cyclops, like the Hecatoncheires, are well typified in the Indian system. 
Siva has an additional eye and a large crescent in the centre of his forehead. 

4 Horn. II. viii. 210 ; Od. viii. 148. 5 Horn. II. xv. 



LEGEND OF POSEIDON. 



61 



palace for the ruler of the waves, in whose depths was situated the 
goodly structure. Here were his steeds, glorious with their golden 
manes and brazen hoofs. Borne along in his chariot by these swift 
ministers of his will, he passes over the tumbling billows of the deep, 
whose waving crest sinks to perfect stillness on his approach, and 
whose monsters, recognising their sovereign lord, gambol in a thousand 
fantastic gaieties around his gliding car, 1 of which the great legendary 
poet of Greece has thus sung : — 

In the deeps of ocean-flood, Homeric 
Where his glorious palace stood, ^ e ^iption 

Golden, dazzling, undecaying, equipage. 
Entereth now the ocean god. 

He his fleet-footed steeds in their car is arraying ; 

All brazen their hoofs ; — see their shoulders, that laves 

The gold of their mane that so gloriously waves. 

See, gold the gods form in a vesture of light, 

See, gold is the lash which he holds in his right, 
As he mounts in his chariot so bright. 

Now over the ocean his coursers on-urging, 

Forth gambol wild crowds of her monsters up-surging. 

As they rise from the lairs of their watery night 
They hail him their lord, 

And wide smiles the ocean with joy at his sight ! 2 




The island of Calaureia, in the Saronic Gulf, where flourished the Sacrifices to 
ancient Amphictyony which honoured Poseidon by sacrifices, was to Siaure£. at 
him what Delos was to Apollo, 3 whilst the isthmus of Corinth, and 
Onchestus, in Boeotia, were renowned for his worship, and dignified 
by his traditionary residence. But far above other favoured spots was 
the rocky Acropolis of Athens, whence, by a stroke of his mighty 
trident, sprang forth a well of water. This sacred place Athene sub- 
sequently claimed for herself, by planting the sacred olive-tree of 

1 II. viii. 27. 

2 h6a, Tz oi xXvto. ^jttaTO (Zivfaffi hiftvng, 

'K/juirzei, ^.K^fixi^ovrx TtTsu^aTxi, ci<p6tToc ah/. 

"Ev@' iX&WV •J'TT O-XJiatyl TlTVITftiTO %tt.'k;LO'7ro$ 'fT^iU, 

'£lx.v7ri<rcL, ^vsiryiiriv zfoigytriv xof^ouvn' 

X^utrov eturiis 'ilvvz Tig} x.go'r yivro 1> I (/.dtr SXm 

Bi5 V 'cXcCKV ITT) HVfAUT cLTaWl XJjrl VT' U.V70U 

Uoivrofav zx xzvO/amv, IvV 'hyvolnazv oivocxTW 

r*i$otrvv'/i Tz &u\Xx<r<rei }uo-<ra.ro' Horn. II. xiii. 21-29. 

8 Strab. viii. 374. 



62 



LEGEND OF POSEIDON. 



Decision of 
Erectheus 
and its 
effects. 



Contentious 
character of 
Poseidon. 



Acquires the 
sovereignty 
of the 
isthmus. 



Creates the 
horse. 



Pandrosus. The decision pronounced by Erectheus on this occasion 
in favour of Athene exasperated Poseidon against the Erectheids, 
whose family he succeeded in entirely overthrowing. The Athenians 
took especial care to dignify their early prince Theseus, by asserting 
that he was the son of Poseidon, and the immediate successor of the 
Erectheids, whose fame he so far surpassed by his glorious reign. 

Whatever was the extent of the realms of Poseidon, his history is 
full of contentious disputation with other deities for the possession of 
some favourite spot. He disputed the claim of Here to Argolis, 
though it had been adjudged to that goddess by important river gods, 1 
upon whom he avenged himself by drying up their streams. With 
Zeus and Dionysus, too, he disputed possession, with the former of 
iEgina, with the latter of Naxos ; 2 while the same grasping spirit led 
him to claim the entire sovereignty of Corinth from Helios. Here he 
was more successful, for though to Helios was adjudged the Acropolis 
of Corinth, to Poseidon was awarded the Isthmus. 3 

One of the most prominent and ancient myths connected with 
this deity is his creation of the horse ; whence he is considered the 
first instructor of mankind in the art of managing and training this 
animal by means of the bridle, and is the especial patron of horse- 
races. 4 Hence, too, he is styled the " Equine Prince," 5 and he is 
generally found on horseback, or borne along in a chariot drawn by 
his ocean steeds. The site of the creation of this noble animal is 
placed by the most ancient authority in Thessaly, where, too, Poseidon 
presented to Peleus those famous horses which figured with such dis- 
tinction at Trov. 6 



Temporary 
servitude of 
the gods. 



Laomedon 
refuses their 
reward. 




One of the most peculiar tenets in Grecian mythology, in common 
with the Hindoo system, was the temporary captivity and servitude of 
the gods to certain of the human race. Thus Poseidon, as well as 
Apollo, were degraded by a protracted slavery under Laomedon, king 
of Troy, though we must not forget that it was at the especial com- 
mand of Zeus. As they toil on and drudge in a human capacity, it is 
but meet that they should receive the usual wages earned by frail 
humanity. Yet we find both of these powerful deities defrauded of 
their just reward. To build the mighty walls of imperial Troy had 
been the task assigned by Laomedon, the despot of that city. But he 
not only refusing the stipulated reward, but by the addition of fierce 
threats, he laid the foundation of that deep animosity winch Poseidon 

Inachus, and Asterion : Paus. ii. 15. 2 Plut. Symp. ix. 6. 

4 Horn. II. xxiii. 307 ; Pind. Pyth. vi. 50. 



Cephisseus, 
Paus. ii. 1. 

"lwtos «v«£. 



6 Horn. II. xxiii. 277. 



LEGEND OF APHRODITE. 



63 



afterwards evinced against the Trojans. 1 The doctrine of divine Doctrine of 
servitude, however simple and consonant with the early notions of the owSous to 
non-speculative poet, in after ages became highly obnoxious to the ^ hil ^ phic 
philosophic school of Greece ; and even Pindar, as far as possible, reece ' 
smooths down traditions appearing to him derogatory to the dignity 
of the celestial nature. 

THE LEGEND OF APHRODITE. 

We now pass on to notice one of the most distinguished deities 
among the twelve of Olympus, whose all-pervading influence is every- 
where acknowledged. Aphrodite, with whose history are interwoven Aphrodite 
the golden tissues of love — with whose supremacy the joyous, the f^Juty S ° f 
pathetic, and the tragic are alternately connected, is by the Homerid 
of Chios depicted by the various influences shown in early legend; 
while in more modern poets her agency becomes unbounded. There 
were, however, three memorable exceptions to her universal sway — 
Athene, Hestia, and Artemis — 

The trine that 'scaped the soothing snares of love. 2 Exceptions 

to her sway. 

The early simplicity of the first Homer stands out strongly in this 
myth when compared with the guarded language of his successor, 
the Homerid of Chios. The former fully sings the divine lineage of 
the Trojan hero iEneas, and everywhere acknowledges him as the son 
of Aphrodite ; whilst the templar bard of Delos introduces her Caution of 
severely enjoining Anchises not to disclose the parentage of iEneas : — Delos/ 1 of 

But shouldst thou aught reveal or madly hoast, 

Cythera's vanquished charms divine, 

Indignant Zeus shall blast thee with his bolt. 3 

In Hesiod, as in the Homeric hymn, the goddess, rising from the Aphrodite 
foam of the sea, 4 first approaches the island of Cythera ; she now pro- thefoam'of 
ceeds to Cyprus ; whilst beneath her gentle steps, even from the the sea - 
barren sea-coast, flowers spring up. Accompanied by Eros and 
Himeros, 5 she enters the assembly of the gods, every one of whom, 
struck with admiration at her surpassing loveliness, desires her as his 
consort. The supremacy of Aphrodite is indicated (as in the case of 
Dionysus) by the vengeance she inflicts upon those who neglect her 
divinity, or despise her power. 

One of the most celebrated myths in connection with Aphrodite, Myth of ^ ^ 
and standing in connection with the Trojan war, was her fondness for Aphrodite." 
Anchises, the father of iEneas, who greatly distinguished himself 
amongst the Trojan heroes. It was Zeus who had surreptitiously 

1 II. vii. 452. 2 Horn. Hymn, Aphrodite, 7. 

3 E/' xsv t^sifti^S) x.ou iTfiv^ioti atypovt dupou 
'Ev (pihorriTi fiiyrivcti iuffrnpava) Kk^wsiV 
Zeuj ai xoXaJtrxftivo; (IxXks'u •J/okotvrt Kipauvw. 

Hymn,' Apoll. 287-289. 

4 Of the same nature is the genesis of the Apsaras in the Hindu Mythology ; 
their name is from " Apo," water, and " Sara," to move. 

5 Love and Desire. 



64 



LEGEND OF APHRODITE, 



Worship of 
Aphrodite. 



Corinthian 
worship of 
Aphrodite. 



inspired her with this flame, and the result was as we have already- 
related. Her cestus, or magic girdle, had such power in kindling love, 
that Here scrupled not to borrow it from the lovely Aphrodite when 
desirous tx/stimulate the affection of Zeus. 1 The worship of Aphrodite 
in Greece was of a purely Hellenic character, and appears to have 
been very early introduced into that country. One exception, how- 
ever, to the simplicity of her worship is strongly marked in the case 
of Corinth, where this is found to be of an eminently Asiatic cast, 
which is easily accounted for by the magnificence and wealth intro- 
duced by a vast and prosperous commerce. 2 




stdi'wlth During the fierce struggle between the Greeks and Trojans, Aphro- 
tteTrojans. dite sided with the latter ; nor is this to be wondered at, when we 
reflect on her intimate connection with the royal family of Troy, as well 
as the decision given in her favour by the beautiful Paris, whom she 
afterwards saved before the walls of Troy from the fury of the incensed 
Menelaus — 

saved by Who thirsting for his blood, with brazen spear, 

Aphrodite. Sprang forward yet again ; him, snatched from death, 

With ease the goddess power of Venus saved. 

Then in deep mist involved ; thence bore away, 

And fragrant in his chamber gently laid. 3 

1 Horn. II. 214. 

2 Aphrodite, the ideal of female grace and loveliness, formed the fairest subject 
for the exercise of Hellenic genius. Cos and Cnidus were renowned for their 
splendid representations of this divinity. Vide Hirt, Mythol. Bilder. iv. 133. 

'Vila [ta.X ol/ffTi hoy \x.oiXw^i V a.(> wgi vroXky, 

KaB' iii iv 0a,kciu,w iva2li, xriuivri. Horn. 77. iiL 379-382, 



LEGEND OF HEBE. 



55 





THE LEGEND OF HEEE. 

In close connection with this legend stands Here — the bitter, Myth of 
haughty, and unrelenting Here, the prime moving power of the Trojan Here ' 
war, and the powerful guardian deitv of Jason. 1 This eldest daughter 
of Cronos and Rhea, and the sister of Zeus. 2 was reared by Oceanus 
and Tethys, as Zeus had seized on the throne of Cronos : she after- 
wards became the consort of the mighty Thunderer. When raised to 
this high dignity, the Olympian gods honoured her with the same 
reverence which they paid to Zeus. 3 The obstinate, contentious, and Her violent 
jealous character of Here, however, is a perpetual source of discomfort character - 
to the imperial Thunderer. She even joins in the grand conspiracy of 
the gods for putting Zeus in chains. Her sovereign lord is sometimes 
so exasperated with her as to proceed to the most violent measures. 
On one occasion we find the queen of heaven suspended in the clouds, 
with her hands chained together, and two anvils suspended from her 
feet. 4 Territied with threats of a similar vengeance, she is afterwards 
more placable, and has recourse to artifice to compass her objects. 5 

The most renowned sanctuary of Here was at the foot of Mount Sanctuary 
Euboea, between Argolis and Mycene. In this was placed her noble ^^* ue 
statue by Polycletus, ever afterwards considered the grand ideal of the 
goddess, who is represented as a majestic woman of mature age, with 
a noble forehead and full lustrous eyes. 6 



1 'Eru Q'lko; h> Ifotn. r. ?.. Rom. Odyss. xii. 72. 
2 Horn. D. rri. 432. 3 Horn. U.V. 85. 

4 II. yiii. 400. 5 II. six. 97. 

6 Her hair is decked with a crown or diadem. The diadem, sceptre, yeil, and 
peacock, are her usual characteristics. Vide Miiller, Dor. ii. 10. 

[h. g.] f 



66 



LEGEND OF ATHENE. 



The boundless jealousy of Here towards the graceful favourites of 
the Thunderer, and her violent antipathies towards his sons, gave rise to 
numerous myths. 



Myth of 
Athene. 



THE LEGEND OF ATHENE. 

If we consider individual feeling as being the only source of celestial 
politics, we shall see why it is that Athene ranges herself upon the 

same side as Here in the great 
conflict at Troy, and assumes 
the tutelary capacity of de- 
fender of the Greeks. Her pride 
had been wounded by the same 
decision of Paris that affected 
Here. We have already seen 
that the most ancient theogony 
makes Metis the mother of 
Athene. This Metis, or goddess 
of counsel, we have seen swal- 
lowed up by Zeus, who him- 
self afterwards gives birth to 
Athene. She is thus a divinity 
of a purely ethical character, 
and as such we have already 
referred to her type as distinctly 
marked in the great epics of the 
Indian school. She appears as 
the protector of agriculture, the 
arts, and the sciences generally. She is the inventor of the plough, 
and the discoverer of the precious Athenian olive. Upon her, as we 
have already seen, the wiles of Aphrodite are powerless ; she is essen- 
tially the virgin goddess. Though clad in armour, and borne in a 
chariot of war, she deters mankind from warfare when prudence 
requires it, 1 and even repels that fierce love of slaughter and warfare 
which distinguishes the savage Ares, whom she encounters and van- 
quishes ; 2 and thus, though appearing with all the attributes of a 
Characteristic warlike deity, she supports such undertakings only as are characterised 
\var£re! nt ^y P ra dence. This principle is still further carried out by the signal 
care and protection which she ever vouchsafed to heroes who acted 
with forecast and judgment; Diomede, Odysseus, and Bellerophon 
are instances of this favourable regard. Though during the Trojan 
war she sided with the Greeks, they were not exempt from her 
righteous retribution for the defilement of her temple by the Locrian 
Ajax. This eminent character for counsel and judgment she evinced 
from her birth, since in the war of Zeus against the giants, her father, 
and subsequently Heracles, were the glad recipients of her sage 




Unaffected 
by 

Aphrodite. 



Sides with 
the Greeks 
at Troy. 



II. i. 199. 



II. v. 840 ; xxi. 406. 



LEGEND OF ARES. 



67 



counsels. 1 Nor was she herself an inactive spectator of the conflict, Assists Zeus 
since she slew Pallas, and buried beneath the island of Sicily the giant paiias ymg 
Enceladus. 2 In our introductory discourse we have already united 
legend and philology to illustrate this myth. 3 We must not overlook 
one of the grand characteristics of Athene, found in the attributes of 
domestic economy and industry. Her divinity was worshipped by Worshipped 
the potters of Athens, 4 with whose soil and people Athene is identified £j t J^ of 
as early as the poet of the Iliad. Erechtheus, the very Autocthon or Athens, 
progeny of the land, is reared and lodged in her temple, where he is 
worshipped by the Athenians with sacrificial solemnities. 




THE LEGEND OF ARES. 

Another of the twelve Olympians was Akes, who stands as the Myth of 
representative of mere brute force, in the conception of the speculative Ares - 
Greek of latter times, though such an idea is not consistent with the 
absolute individuality which animated every deity in the Homeric 
times. The character of Ares is prominently contrasted with that of 
Athene, by its unheeding and reckless fury, and its total absence of 
forecast. The most ancient authorities represent him as the son 
of Zeus and Here. 5 It is Ins sister Eris that hounds on the war, and 
while Zeus guides its course, Ares loves the maddening strife purely 
for its own sake. His delight is in the battle roar, in human carnage, 
and the sack of towns. No constancy even of party spirit has he, and 

1 In some of the beautiful representations of Athene which have descended to us, 
she wears the cloak or peplus ; and sometimes, though rarely, the chlamys. Her 
whole figure is majestic, though its general cast somewhat resembles the male 
form. Her hair, which floats freely behind, by being combed backwards off the 
temples, displays features rather oval than round. See Welcker's Zeitschrift fur 
Geschichte der Alten Kunst, p. 257. 

2 Apollod. i. 6. 3 Vide p. 8 of Introduction. 

4 Horn. Hymn : Ka^/voj h Ks^/s. 5 Horn. II. v. 893 ; Hes. Theog. 921. 

F 2 



68 



LEGEND OF HEPHAISTOS. 



inconstancy Zeus stigmatizes him as the changeling of the bloody hour — now 
disposition, siding with this and now with the other party. 1 

Episode of The episode of Diomede's conflict with Ares on the plains of Troy 
andlrss * s memora ^^ e m classic story. The fiery hero has already wounded 
Aphrodite, and he now turns his desperate valour against the very god 
of war. Minerva, be it remembered, is still at hand to guide, and 
shield, and direct him. Ares is fresh from the slaughter of the 
gigantic Periphas, an iEtolian chieftain. Athene, insuring her own in- 
visibility by the aid of the helmet of Hades, in company with Diomede, 
and riding by his side in his war-chariot, advances against the tre- 
mendous deity. Thirsting for the slaughter of the Grecian chief, Ares 
now urged against him his formidable brazen spear : Athene, seizing 
this, directed its devious flight below the chariot. The chance was 
now with Diomede : — 
Battle of The hero of " The Mighty Shout " 

Diomede Now charged in turn with brazen spear; 

and Axes. The godded j en t it weight ; and where 

The belt Mars' lower form about 

Eound girdled with its plated fold, 

There the son of Greece undaunted, 

In the belt his weapon planted, 

And pierced that form of godlike mould. 

Forth again the lance he tore, 

Ares answered with a roar 

From brazen throat, heard loud and far, 

As shout of myriad hosts, where reels the shock of war. 

Then seized each warring band a trembling fright, 

So bellowed Ares fierce, insatiable of fight ! 2 

Servitude In common with Apollo and Poseidon, as we have just seen, Ares 
of Ares. ^ g \^ e ^ j n bondage by the gigantic Aloadge, though much more rigidly 
treated, being a prisoner in chains for thirteen months ; when he was 
at length delivered by Hermes. 3 This deity, of grand and noble pro- 
portions, was beloved by Aphrodite, to whom he lent his war-chariot. 4 
Thrace was usually considered the residence of Ares, in which, as well 
as Scythia, were the chief seats of his worship. 5 



THE LEGEND OF HEPHAISTOS. 

Hgpha^tos ^ ne son °^ ^ eus anc ^ Here, Hephaistos, 6 is the god of fire, displayed 
as one of the grand physical powers, and exemplified in volcanic dis- 
1 Horn. II. v. 889. 

*EX%u' %u\xzIm' Irtioiuri Ti UaXXag 'AS-jwj 

Tri pd ju,tv ovrot <rv%av, %ioe, Ti xaXov s^a^ptv' 

'Ex Ti Togv o-trdcriv avrtg' o T t^a^i xaXx,io$" A(>9)(, 

"O/rtrav t' ivvicc%iXoi Wict%ov n ^sxd^iXos 

'Ave^s? iv <zroXi/*aj, 'igiha. ^vvzyovn; "A^vjog. 

Tovg T olg vto TgofjLog siXiv ' A^ctiovg nri T(>Za,g T£, 

Atia-ccvra; rocrov %^>o«.^* Agy; arog ToXtfioto. Hom. U. V. 855-863. 
8 n. v. 385. « II. v. 363. 

5 Od. viii. 361. 6 II. i. 578 ; xiv. 338. 



LEGEND OF HEPHAISTOS. 



69 



tricts ; and he is the deity indispensable in duly fostering the arts and 
manufactures. One of the most beautiful works of technical skill that 
he ever produced was the far-famed shield of Achilles. His personal 
characteristics — the combination of skill and deformity — formed the Arts and 
source of numerous mythical tales. He was the type of whatever is peculiarities 
curious and ingenious, just as Daedalus was amongst mortals. Here {f. . 
his position amongst the male deities was exactly that of Athene among ep 1S ° s- 
the female ; in fact, he was believed, conjointly with her, to have 
instructed mankind in the arts and embellishments of life. 1 




As he was weakly from his birth, his mother, wishing to get rid of 
him, let him fall from Olympus. Kindly received, however, by Thetis 
and Eurynome, divinities of the sea, he continued with them for nine 
years, making for them many curious ornaments. 2 Though badly 
treated by his imperial mother, he was a dutiful and obedient son, and 
on one occasion his affection for her cost him dear, for he was punished He is flung 
by Zeus for interfering in a quarrel between himself and Here. The ze^fSm 
Olympian tyrant, seizing him by the leg, hurled him down from the Olympus, 
lofty abode of the gods. This sad adventure of his, by which he 
became lame, he recounts to the assembled gods in a half-melancholy, 
half-jocular mood, as a kind of peace-offering, to restore harmony in 
the celestial banquet, which had lately been disturbed by a violent 
quarrel between Zeus and Here. He thus gives an account of his 
disaster : — 

I was falling and falling throughout the long day, Describes his 

And when the sun sank with his last setting ray th^ban ^et 

I fell into Lemnos. And know, for a god, I of the gods. 

Had little breath left within my poor body. 3 

It was upon this occasion that he attempted the graceful part of the Acts the 
celestial cupbearer. His figure, unfortunately, was a striking contrast cu P- bearer - 

1 Od. xxiii. 160. 2 Horn. II. xviii. 394. 

3 Day V riftctg Qiao/Aviv, ttfia. V r,i\'tM xara^vvri, 
Ku.<7r7ri(rcv £v Aw/avm' oKiyoi V iri Ov/aos hritv. 

B. i. 592, 593. 



70 



LEGEND OF HESTIA. 



Favourite 
abode of 
Hephaistos. 



His 

workshop. 



to his handsome predecessor's, which, together with his hobbling gait, 
propped up as he was with artificial supports manufactured by his 
own hand, excited the uncontrollable merriment of the immortals ; 
his mother even could not help smiling as she received the goblet from 
her now laughable son ; and as to the Olympian conclave, when they 
behold him, as 

From left to right to all lie pours 

Sweet nectar from the goblet draining, 

Amongst the gods incessant roars 

Of laughter, in heaven's palace rise, 

To see the limping god maintaining 

The part of waiter to the skies. 1 

As each divinity had his favourite abode upon earth, Hephaistos 
preferred Lemnos ; 2 while the volcanic islands of Imbros, Sicily, and 
Lipara were considered his workshops. 3 In Olympus, too, in his own 
palace, which is marvellously brilliant, he has an amateur establish- 
ment, with anvil and twenty bellows, working spontaneously at his 
will ; 4 and here are manufactured all his ingeniously-beautiful works 
of art, and arms for gods and men. In the Trojan war he sided with 
the Greeks, where his naturally mild character is shown by saving a 
Trojan from the slaughtering arm of Diomede. 5 



Myth of 
Hestia. 



Offices of 
Hestia. 



Colonial 
custom. 



Roman 
Vesta. 



THE LEGEND OF HESTIA. 

The chaste Hestia, over whom we have seen that Aphrodite had no 
influence, was the daughter of Cronos and Ehea. Like Athene, she 
was a maiden divinity, and though Poseidon and Apollo sued for her 
hand, she swore by the head of imperial Zeus to remain for ever a 
virgin. 6 Her office was sacred ; she presided at all sacrifices, and, as 
"Being the deity of the altar-fire, she shared in the sacrifices offered, of 
which the first part was presented to her. 7 The hearth itself was the 
sacred asylum for suppliants, 8 and so of the public hearth. Here 
were received guests and foreign ambassadors. From this Prytanitis, 
or sacred hearth of the state, all colonies took the fire that was about 
to burn upon the hearth of the new city. 9 Should this fire by any 
chance become extinct, it could only be renovated by drawing it from 
the sun by burning-glasses, or by producing it by friction. With this 
goddess the Eoman Vesta was identical. Hestia was essentially the 
goddess of domestic life, since the hearth was justly considered its 
sacred centre. 10 The special invocation of this goddess as a sacrificial 

1 Aurug o to7; a-XXoieriv ho7; lvBs|/a cr«£<ni» 
ftvo^ae/, yXvxv v'iktu^ o.vro xgwrwgo; a.<p6(r<ruv 
"Atrfliffros B' ha^ro yiXcog (jcaxd^itriri 6&o7triv, 
'tis 'fhov "Hcpouirrov la par a. -zroi^vvovra. 

2 Od. viii. 283. 77. i. 597, 600. 

3 Callim. Hymn, Dian. 47; Apoll. Rhod. iii. 41. 4 II. xviii. 370. 
5 II. v. 9. 6 Horn. Hymn, Aphrodite, 22. 
7 Horn. Hymn, Aphrodite, 31. 8 Horn. Od. xiv. 159. 

9 Dion. Hal. ii 65. 10 Callim. Hymn in Del. 325. 



LEGEND OF ARTEMIS. 



71 



and purifying agent, both in Italy and in Greece, leads us to its oriental 
source. There the Brahminical priesthood are to maintain a perpetual Brahminical 
fire, to which the) 7 offer oblations. The maintenance of the household ntes " 
fire is also a prime object in their religious tenets ; it is produced by 
the attrition of two pieces of wood. 

THE LEGEND OF AETEMIS. 

Artemis is the last of those maiden deities who were never affected Myth of 
by the blandishments of Aphrodite. Hesiod and Homer ascribe her A * temis - 
parentage to Zeus and Leto. 1 She is the sister of Apollo, and born in parentage, 
the isle of Delos. As there were many points of view from which the 
Greeks considered this goddess, we shall select that which is most in 
accordance with the popular Hellenic notion, whose source we find in 
Arcadia. Here she is the female sovereign of the nymphs : while in this Sovereign of 

. °, J r 7 the nymphs. 

province her sanctuaries and her temples were very numerous and 
of ancient foundation : Mounts Taygetus and Erymanthus were the 
scenes of her sylvan exploits. Here it is that she hunts in company 
with her nymphs, of whom twenty formed a sort of regular retinue in 
the chase, while the daughters of Oceanus, to the number of an addi- 
tional sixty, formed her choral dances in the mountain forests. The Choir of 
weapons of the chase — the bow, quiver, and arrows — were the work- r emis ' 
manship of Hephaistos, while Pan provided her with hounds. Four 
stags with golden antlers were attached to her chariot, and formed a 
swift and graceful equipage. 2 The usual position of her temples in 
Arcadia was contiguous to lakes or rivers, whence she is sometimes 
styled " Limnetis," 3 or the " Goddess of the Lake." But the most 
ancient point of view in which Artemis was considered was as the ^ s s js ter of 
sister of Apollo. In this character she is, like Apollo, armed with p ° °" 
bow and arrows, often dealing out plague and death amongst animated 
creation. During the Trojan war she sides with the Trojans, as does 
her brother Apollo. Amongst the immortals she is the Elaphebolos, 
or Stag-killer, and delights in the wild tumult of the chase. 5 But a 
still more ancient type of this goddess, in fact that whence the 
Arcadian Artemis takes its rise, is to be found in the union of 
" Artemis of the Stag," and Artemis, the sister of Helios, the Sun, or 
Apollo, in which case she would necessarily be Selene, or the Moon. 
This notion we find in the Hindoo system, where Soma, or the Moon, Artemis as 
is described as young, beautiful, and of dazzling fairness, riding in a e oon * 
car drawn by an antelope. He appears both as a male and female, 
which, again, establishes the fact of the Indian immigration into 
Egypt, where this deity was worshipped both as masculine and 
feminine, the men sacrificing to the divinity as Luna, and the women 
as Lunus. The Indian deity is the president of Soma-war, or Moon- Artemis of 
day (Monday). Among other names, that of " Mriganka " is given n ,a ' 

1 Hesiod Theog. 918. 2 Callim. Hymn in Artem. 3 Alfcvti, a lake. 

4 Paus. viii. 53. a 5 Horn. Hymn in Art. 10. 



72 



LEGEND OF ARTEMIS. 



to him — " He who has the deer in his lap." The hymn to Surya 
contains the following beautiful address : — 

Hymn to Thou nectar-beaming moon, 

Sur y a - Regent of dewy night, 

From yon bright roe that in thy bosom sleeps, 
Fawn-spotted Sasin 1 hight ; 
Wilt thou desert so soon 
Thy night-flowers pale, whom liquid odour steeps, 
And Oshadi's transcendant beam, 
Burning in the darkest glade ? 
Will no loved name thy gentle mind persuade 
Yet one short hour to shed thy cooling stream ? 2 

Hyperborean We again hold a connecting link with this deity through the 
Artemis ° f n^dium of Herodotus, by whom we are informed 3 that the worship 
of Artemis came from the Hyperboreans, and that the Hyperborean 
maidens brought sacrifices to Delos. Here, again, we are led over 
the Orphic track into Thessaly, with the Greek and Indian symbol of 
" The Fawn." In the latter system, we have this symbol occurring 
as " the dusky deer on the disk of the Moon." Nor is the myth of 
Artemis, and her connection with the Oreades, or Mountain Nymphs, 
and the Hamadryades, 4 or Tree Nymphs, less distinctive of the source 
of the legend. These, again, like Artemis, are of Arcadian origin. 5 
Now, coupling the fawn of Artemis (the Moon) with the fawn of 
Soma (the Indian Moon), we have a strong elucidation of the identity 
of these two divinities, and the application of their offices. In the 
Vishnu Purana, we learn that the world was overran with trees, and 
nature thereby much distressed. These the sages destroy with flames 
and with wind. On this occasion it is that the Moon, seeing but a 
few trees remaining, begs that their destruction may be stayed, and 
exclaims (and here is the Greek notion of the Hamadryades) — 

This precious maiden, daughter of the woods, 
Marisha hight, I with my rays have fed ; 
Undoubted offspring of the grove is she. 6 



Connection 
of Artemis, 
the Moon, 
and the 
Nymphs. 



Indo-epic 
illustration. 




the Eoe. 8 Sir W. Jones, " Hymn to Surya. 

3 Herod, ii. 32. 4 Horn. Hymn in Aphrod. 

5 Apoll. Rhod. iii. 477. 

6 Vish. Puran. C. 15. Horace has both the mythologic and poetic idea :— 

Quamvis pontica pinus, 

Silvae fllia nobilis. Eor, i. 14. 



LEGEND OF AETEMIS. 



73 



That prime type of the Grecian divinity, jealousy on account of Jealousy of 
neglected sacrifice, is strongly marked in the case of Artemis, who Artemis * 
sent the memorable Calydonian boar as a visitation on (Eneus for his 
neglect of her, while he did honour to the other divinities. 

It is impossible, in the brief space allotted to this department of 
our subject, to do justice to the ample stores of Mythology. We are 
compelled to close our sketches of the gods that we may be able to 
take in review the subject of the legendary heroes of Greece, most of 
whom will be found to hold a special connection with particular 
localities. 



CHAPTER V. 



Works and 
Days of 
Hesiod. 



LEGENDS OF HEROES. 

If the Theogony of Hesiod, on the one hand, has furnished us with the 
doctrinal relics of Orpheus, and through him of the great Indian 
Hymns of system, the hymns of the Homerid of Chios have spread before us the 
ofChiS Qerid most s i m P^ e forms of divine agency personified, as drawn from poetic 
invention, and founded upon human modes of actions, the only differ- 
ence being the comparative magnitude and power by which those 
actions are developed. From the Theogony of Hesiod we have now 
to repair to another storehouse, " The Works and Days," which he 
has filled with materials drawn from the same magazine that we have 
already examined. 

Golden age. The Olympic gods, as the poet sings, formed the golden race happy, 
perfect, and good — men who subsisted upon the spontaneous pro- 
ductions of the earth. The tranquillity they enjoyed was like that of 
the immortals ; disease and age touched them not, and their death 
was a gentle slumber : — ■ 

In banquets they delight, removed from care, 

Nor troublesome old age intruded there ; 

They die, or rather seem to die — they seem 

From hence transported in a pleasing dream. 1 

Even their very departure from this upper world became a source of 
benefit to their successors, for they became guardian agencies, pos- 
1 Cooke's Hesiod. 



The 

Daemons 



LEGENDS OF HEKOES. 



75 



sessed subterranean invisibility, and, like Plutus, enjoyed the privilege 
of dispensing riches. 

To this glorious race succeeded the silver race, reckless beings who Silver age. 
disdained the immortal gods, and refused them sacrifice and worship. 
If the silver race was degenerate, what must be said by the poet of 
the succeeding age ? The brazen race, which now arose was made of Brazen race, 
hard ash-wood, and the disposition of this race was pugnacious in the 
extreme. Of gigantic strength were they, and of adamantine soul. 
Their very arms and implements were of brass. Incessantly engaged 
in fierce conflicts, they mutually perished, and ignobly descended to 
the realms of Hades. 

The fourth race formed by Zeus were made more just, and in every Fourth or 
respect superior to the former. They were heroes and demigods — Her0ic race - 
the glory of the Trojan war. Here it was that some perished ; others, 
by the gentle regard of Zeus, were removed to the happy islands of 
the blest : — • 

There in the islands of the blest they find, 
Where Saturn reigns with endless calm of mind, 
And there the choicest fruits adorn the fields, 
And thrice the fertile year a harvest yields. 1 

The poet has now nearly passed through the whole of his graduated The iron age. 
scale. One age alone remains ; it is the iron age. And here that vein 
of melancholy reflection which more or less characterises this poem is 
most strongly marked. The poet sees nothing round him but dis- 
honesty, injustice, ingratitude, and perjury, and he deeply regrets that 
his lot is cast in its degenerate days : — 

For now the times are such, the gods ordain 
That every moment shall be winged with pain ; 
Condemned to sorrows and to toil we live, 
Rest to our labour death alone can give. 2 

Such is the system of human agencies depicted by Hesiod. But, 
because it is a system, as is his Theogony, just in that proportion it 
loses the stamp of Grecian invention. Nothing of this doctrinal, 
classifying, and arranging tendency appears, as we have already seen, 
in the writings of Homer ; his position in Ionia removed him from 
those influences which gave such a deep tinge to the writings of 
Hesiod. The same profound ethical development is prominently seen Ethical tone 
in the writings of Pindar. Both Hesiod and Pindar were natives of of Boeotia - 
Boeotia ; and the common allusions of both authors to the Orphic and 
Pythagorean dogmas, demonstrate some local and abiding source in 
Boeotia of those principles which we have already shown to be of 
Oriental origin. We cannot take a step in this early inquiry, without 
being met on the very threshold by evidences of the source of these 
deep reflections. Again, as in the Titanic war, Hesiod has had access Pre-existent 
to a system previously elaborated; just as Ovid has drawn upon epicaltypes ' 
Hesiod. The type of those various ages is clearly drawn in the dif- 
ferent Yugs, or Ages, of the Hindoo epic. Here again, as in the case illustrated. 



Cooke's Hesiod. 



2 Ibid. 



76 



LEGENDS OF HEROES. 



Four ages of 
the Indian 
epic. 



Golden age 
of Valmlki. 



Repeated 
copies of 
original. 



Hesiod's 
ethics not 
entirely 
his own. 



Benevolence 
of the 
daemons. 



Office of the 
daemons. 



of Ovid and Hesiod, Valmiki, the author of ancient Indian heroic 
poems, has had recourse, in his turn, to a system still more ancient, in 
which the four popular ages are distinctly noted. Even, with such 
variations as might be expected, his comparison between the happy 
state of things subsisting under an able prince, who is the subject of 
his eulogy, and the Sutya Yug, or the happy age, clearly marks the 
origin of the Hesiodic type. The poet observes — 
No cause to dread the fiery element 
Was there — all things the happy age 
Resembled ! and of hunger's pangs no dread. 1 



And again- 



And again- 



Within that realm the civic joy o'erflowed, 

In offspring fertile and for justice famed, 

Each soul enjoyed hib own ; and, truthful, grasped 

Not the wealth of others. 2 



O'erflowed with corn each village and each town, 
And in this happy realm was no one deaf, 
Forlorn, nor ignorant. 

Such is the picture drawn by an ancient poet — yet how close are all 
the chief features to the original ! Just so in Hesiod, we see sufficient 
to trace the direct line of his Titanic war, and of his five ages. 

Even the melancholy sentimentalism of Hesiod is not entirely his 
own. A great moral teacher had preceded him in the same ethical 
vein, and tradition had not been unfaithful in preserving to Greece 
that tone of feeling. In the Vishnu Purana, the sage tells us, in 
anticipation of a worse than iron age, that in the " Kali Yug " the life 
of no individual will exceed twenty-three years, and that the sole 
clothing will be the bark of trees ; and, with this miserable defence 
against the elements, men will be " exposed to the sun, and rain, and 
cold." 1 There appears one bright spot in the sad desolation lamented 
by Hesiod : it is the connecting link which the gods have established 
between themselves and degraded humanity. The " Daemons " of 
Hesiod, those invisible tenants of the world, still keep guard over 
mankind for the especial benefit of humanity. They are the unseen 
agents of the gods ; they are in vast force ; and this consideration points 
to the danger of violating the eternal laws of justice : — 

Through cities then the holy daemon runs 

Unseen, and mourns the baseness of their sons, 

Dispensing judgments, to avenge the crimes 

Of those who banish justice from the times. 3 



Ram. c. 6, Slok. 108. 

2 Tasmin purvare hrishta dharmatmano bahupraja 
Narastushta dhanaih svaih svairalobdha satyavadinah. 

Ram. c. 6. 

3 Cooke's Hesiod. 



LEGEND OF PEOMETHEUS. 



77 



THE LEGEND OF PROMETHEUS. 

Of the four sons of the Titan god Japetus — Atlas, Menoetius, Prome- intellectual 
theus, and Epimetheus — the two last appear by far the most interesting. feTwIen 
If the struggle between Zeus and the Titans be one of force, that Zeus and 
between Zeus and Prometheus is purely intellectual. 

In the development of the respective duties and privileges of gods 
and men, the keen-witted Prometheus, the tutelary representative of 
man, had grossly overreached Zeus, who, in receiving what he had 
supposed to be the richest portions of the steer offered in sacrifice to 
him, was highly incensed to find that the fattest part which he had 
selected contained nothing but the bones which it craftily enveloped. 
Zeus felt that he had been outwitted, and to avenge the insult with- zeus 
held from man the inestimable comfort of fire. The restless Prometheus jj JJf*' 
again thwarted Zeus by stealing this ethereal product, and conveying overreached, 
it to man in the hollow of a ferule. 1 

Zeus, now still more indignant, resolved upon a more destructive 
stratagem. By his directions a lovely female, moulded and attired 
with every attractive grace, was presented to mankind. Pandora 
(such was the name of this attractive being) was brought to Epime- Myth of 
theus, during his brother's absence, and though the former had received Pandora - 
strict injunctions not to receive any gifts at the hands of Zeus, the 
beauty of Pandora, the " all-gifted," was irresistible. But, alas ! from 
the instant she was admitted among mankind, comfort and tranquillity 
fled, and in their place succeeded hardships of every kind. Before 
the arrival of Pandora, the evils to which humanity was liable had 
been safely enclosed in a casket, under the keeping of man. The ma- 
licious Pandora removed the lid, and forthwith out flew these dire Mischief of 
calamities. Hope alone remained, for before she could escape, the Pandora - 
fatal lid was replaced. The grand epic doctrine of the Eidolon here 
plays an early and prominent part, the very first which appears in any 
Greek system. The Homeric eidolon of Deiphobus stands in a narra- Narrative 
tive position, the Pandora of Hesiod in a doctrinal one. This is sources*™ 
evident from its analogous treatment by the Puranas. Both the contra- 
Greek and the Hindoo are treating of the Theogony where it forms a J 
junction with human nature, — the one of Zeus and the Titan race, the 
other of Vishnu and the Daityas, whose mythologic identity we have 
shown ; and though the scenery is different, the power exercised is the 
same. " Go," says the Divinity to the gods then advancing against Doctrinal 
the Daityas, after emitting from his body an illusory form, " Go, and the°indian 
fear not — let this delusive form precede you." 2 The type is sufficiently epic, 
distinct to be at once recognised. But while the illusive Pandora is 
of this cast, the great body of the myth is as clearly a distorted legend 
of the creation of the great mother of the human race, and another Hebrew 
source of legend, early flowing into Greece through the medium of S^y 1 ^ 
Phoenician commerce, a source which we have before noticed. 

As for the daring champion of the human race, who rashly vied 
1 Hes. Theog. 566, Op. et Di. 52. 2 Vish. Pur. iii. c. 17. 



mrces in 
ontra- 
distinction. 



78 



LEGEND OF 10. 



mentSf w ^ ^ eus * n sa § ac ^ olls penetration, he was secured by massy chains 
Prometheus, to a pillar, where he continued for many generations. Dire were his 
sufferings ; each day did an eagle prey upon his liver, which again grew 
at night, a horrid sustenance for the suffering of the succeeding day. 

At length Zeus permitted his favourite son Heracles to kill the eagle, 
and thus rescue the suffering prisoner. 1 



Local myths 
leading to 
history. 



Myth of 
Inachus. 



Grecian 
history 
commences 
with 

Lycurgus. 



Phoroneus 
first civilizer 
of mankind. 



Io. 



THE LEGEND OF INACHUS. 

We now begin to leave behind us the great elements of Divine 
agency in their grand application to human affairs, and have to con- 
template local influences acting upon the faith of the chieftain or the 
invention of the poet. 

We have pointed out the ease with which legend was made sub- 
servient to etymology, a principle, whose early, as well as later univer- 
sality fed the abundant sources of this ample stream. Perhaps the 
earliest of these local Hellenic legends is that of Inachus, of Argive 
celebrity. He is said to have been a river god, 2 and king of Argos, 
son of Oceanus and Tethys. True to then usual system of etymology, 
the Greeks attributed the nomenclature of the river Inachus to the 
circumstance, that this their famous hero threw himself into it when 
pursued by the fury whom Zeus had sent to torment him. 3 Mytho- 
logical chronology, guided by an assumed number of years for each 
generation, has placed the date of Inachus at B. c. 1986, about one 
thousand ages previous to the Olympiads. As such a conjectural 
system tends not to strengthen the dignity of history, but rather to 
induce a blind acquiescence in the great Hellenic failing before noticed, 
we shall treat the whole of these early local myths as such ; entering 
upon the firmer arena of true history not before the times of 
Lycurgus. 

THE LEGEND OF 10. 

Phoroneus and iEgialeus were the sons of Inachus. In the Argive 
genealogies the latter was greatly celebrated, and in the ancient poem 
of the Phoronis, is called " the father of mortal men." 4 To him is 
attributed the first knowledge of fire, 5 and the first dissemination of 
social habits ; his power extended over the Peloponnesus, and his tomb 
was to be seen at Argos. 6 

The son of Niobe, by Zeus, was named Argos ; from whom the 
Peloponnesus received the same denomination. From this grand line 
descended Io, who furnished a favourite theme for the genealogical 
poets and Attic tragedians. 

1 For the my thus of Prometheus, vide the able article of Vdlcker, Mythol. des 
Japet Geschlechtes. 

2 The same unhesitating belief in the personality of river gods has ever prevailed 
in the Indian epic. Vide Ramay. the Address to Kushiki, c. Slok. 

3 Plut. de Fluv. 18. 4 Frag. Epic. Duntz. p. 57. 

5 The Persian epic makes civilization to accompany the invention of fire. The 
Persian king, Hoshang, is said to have discovered it by the spark emitted from a 
stone which dashed against a rock in his attack on a monstrous dragon. 

6 Paus. ii. 15. 5. 



LEGEND OF 10. 



79 



To the abduction of Io, the daughter of the king of Argos, by the Phoenician 
Phoenicians, and to similar retaliatory measures between Greeks and accountofI °' 
Asiatics, Herodotus ultimately ascribes the Persian war. But it is in 
the Grecian accounts of Io's adventures that we are to see the myth 
most fully developed. 

Here had discovered the attachment of Zeus to Io, the priestess Greek legend 
of the far-famed Heraeon, or temple of Here, between Argos and of Io " 
Mycenae. Zeus, to escape the charge of this amour, had metamorphosed i un d er the 
his favourite into a white cow, which Here succeeded in placing under of 
the charge of Argos Panoptes (All-eye). This guardian Hermes slew ; Panoptes. 
and now Here drove her competitor from her own country by the conti- 
nued stinging of a gad-fly. The wandering Io roamed without suste- wanderings 
nance over vast tracts of land, and passing an arm of the sea, gave her of Io - 
name to the Ionic gulf. She ranged through Illyria, the wild heights of 
Mount Haemus, Caucasus, the Cimmerian Bosphorus, Scythia, many 
Asiatic regions, and finally Egypt, where at length she found repose. 

Iasus the Argive, Io's father, was succeeded by Crotopus, Sthenelas, 
and Gelanor. In the reign of the latter it was that Danaus and his Arrival of 
fifty daughters came from Egypt to Argos. Danaus and Egyptus JJjJJJJ 
were two brothers, descended from Epaphus, the son of Io. Now, daughters. 
Egyptus had fifty sons who were desirous to marry the fifty daughters 
of Danaus. As the daughters of Danaus manifested the greatest 
repugnance to this union, their father took them to Argos. Here 
they were followed by their persevering suitors. Danaus was com- Followed by 
pelled to assent, but he contemplated a bitter fate for the sons of E s yptus - 
Egyptus, The wedding-night found each daughter of Danaus provided The 
with a dagger, with which every husband, with the exception of 
Lynceus, was slain, Hypermnestra, whom he had married, having husbands, 
spared his life contrary to the express orders of Danaus, her father. 

From this family did the Greeks derive and apply the name of 
" Danai," first to the Argives, and then to the Homeric Greeks at 
large. 

When we consider the intimate connection of the two legends of Io 
and Danaus, we are still further confirmed in our opinion of the double 
stream of migration from India, before noticed. Here, after protracted 
wanderings, Io arrives at the spot where Prometheus the Titan is 
undergoing his long punishment ; this spot, according to the last play io at Mount 
of the trilogy of iEschylus, is Mount Caucasus. To this place then, Caucasus - 
a prime position of the Casyapates, Daityas, or Titans, does Io repair, 
in the form of a cow, an animal sacred in the religious systems both of 
India and Egypt. It is from the neighbourhood of a religious establish- 
ment that Io is driven — here she is a white cow. She reaches the io as a white 
settlements of the early immigrant into Greece, and finally arrives at cow * 
Egypt, where she at last enjoys repose, is restored to her form, and 
gives birth to Epaphus, her black son. This confirms the idea of a The myth 
religious people expelled from Greece by the stronger sacerdotal party. elucid ated. 
They repair once more to the early immigrative settlements of their 



Danaides 
their 



80 



LEGEND OF DANAE AND PERSEUS. 



Religious 
tendency of 
the myth. 



Prometheus 
representa- 
tive of an old 
emigration. 



Indo- 
European 
worship 
expelled. 



Inferences. 



Danaus king 
of Avgos. 



Daughters of 
Proetos. 



race, Caucasus and Thrace, and once more reappear in Egypt among 
the original twin stream of emigrants. Here they have rest (i. e., enjoy 
community of worship), while the black son of Io represents the phy- 
sical and religious connection of the earlier settlers with that party who 
had newly arrived. Io is restored to her original form, or, in other 
words, the new emigrants practise their old form of worship. Add 
to this that Danaus and Egyptus were two brothers, descending from 
the son of Io ; that Danaus sought refuge in the very country whence 
his ancestor had been driven ; and we are led to conclude that a reli- 
gious rupture took place between the older Egyptian colonies from 
India (the Danavas), here confounded as one of the descendants of Io, 
and the more modern sect represented by Io. It is from Prometheus 
the Titan that she learns her way to Egypt, the seat of the early 
Indian colonies. The Titan, Prometheus, too, is equally a sufferer for 
a religious cause ; but he is fixed in one place, he cannot move, he 
can only give advice. From this, it would appear that the attachment 
of Zeus (the ruling power) to Io — the priestess — the white cow — or 
the Indo-European worship, led to its expulsion from Argos ; and after 
a sojourn at Caucasus, its former onward resting-place towards Greece, 
its followers are, by the descendants of the old settlers, still remaining 
there under great difficulties and distresses from the ruling powers, 
directed to the early settlements of their religion in Egypt, where at 
length they are free from the gad-fly, or persecution. Now, although 
no allegory was ever contemplated in this myth by the believing Greek 
of antiquity, and although he felt firmly convinced of the positive 
personality of all the actors in it, still it is not the less probable 
that broken and disjointed traditions descending to the poet, would 
be by^him moulded to something suitable to his idea of the nature 
of the gods and their power; and, by reversing this process of 
his, we may at last arrive at something not far from the truth. 

By the voluntary abdication of Gelanor, the king of Argos, Danaus 
now became sovereign of that country, and was succeeded by his son-in- 
law Lynceus, whose successor was Abas. His two sons, Acrisius and 
Proetos, divided between them the territory of Argos. Unhappily, the 
vengeance of some offended divinity overtook the beautiful daughters 
of Proetos. They had been solicited in marriage by many noble 
suitors in Greece ; but now, smitten with the loathsome visitation of the 
leprosy, 1 they wandered in this wretched state through Peloponnesus. 
Their father at length secured their restoration to health by the prayers 
of Melampus, the far-famed prophet and physician of Pylus : it was, 
however, at the expense of two-thirds of his kingdom. 



THE LEGEND OF DANAE AND PERSEUS. 

Meanwhile Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, became involved in a 
tragical train of things, of a still more romantic cast. As an oracle 

1 Pherecyd. ap. Schol. Horn. Odyss. xv. 225. 



LEGEND OF HERACLES. 



81 



had informed Acrisius that his daughter would give birth to a son by 
whom he should fall, he imprisoned Danae in a subterranean chamber 
of brass. Notwithstanding, Zeus, her lover, found means to descend Myth of 
to her through these obstacles, in the guise of a shower of gold. Thus Danae> 
was vindicated the first part of the prophecy ; the birth of a son, 
Perseus, soon fulfilled the latter. The cruel Acrisius now enclosed Danae- and 
both mother and child in a coffer, which he cast into the sea. Here, J^unto 
buffeted by the winds and billows, the unhappy mother gave impas- the sea. 
sioned utterance to all the bitterness of woe in the language of a 
mother's heart : — 

My child, what woes does Danae weep ! Lament of 

But thy young limhs are wrapt in sleep ! Danae. 

In that poor nook, all sad and dark, 

While lightnings play around our bark, 

Thy quiet bosom only knows 

The heavy sigh of deep repose ; 

The howling wind, the raging sea, 

No terror can excite in thee. 

The angry surges wake no care 
That burst above thy long deep hair ; 
But couldst thou feel what I deplore, 
Then would I bid thee sleep the more. 
Sleep on, sweet boy ; still be the deep ! 
Oh, could I lull my woes to sleep ! 
Jove, let thy mighty hand o'erthrow 
The baffled malice of my foe ; 
And may this child in future years 
Avenge his mother's wrongs and tears. 1 

This frail ark of safety was borne to the isle of Seriphus, where Danae p a na5 and 
and Perseus were rescued. Perseus 

rcscu6cl 

When Perseus grew up to maturity, his heroic courage was sig- 
nalized by bringing back from Lybia the horrible head of Medusa, 
which possessed the power of turning into stone every one who 
looked upon it. By the tutelary protection of Athene, he returned 
in safety from this perilous enterprise. It was on his way homewards 
that he rescued Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, who had been Perseus 
left to be devoured by a sea-monster ; she became his wife. Unhap- ^rOTieda 
pily, the predictions of the oracle were fulfilled in the case of his 
grandfather, Acrisius, whom he struck dead by an incautious swing of a Accidentally 
quoit. The descendants of Perseus and of Mycene, whose immediate 5^,,,. 
progeny was numerous, range down to the latest kings of Sparta. 

THE LEGEND OF HERACLES. 

We have contemplated the Argive families of Inachus, Io, and 
Perseus, and we now turn to the far-famed myth of Thebes, which Myth of 
numbers amongst its heroes a name not less illustrious than that of Heracles. 
Heracles, the son of Alcmene. Zeus had publicly boasted amongst the 
immortal gods, that a son should on that day be born to him, who 
1 By the Authors of the Greek Anthology ; from Simonides. 

[h. g.] g 



82 



LEGEND OF HERACLES. 



Artifice of 
Here". 



Zeus hurls 
Ate from 
Olympus, 



Accomplish- 
ments of 
Heracles. 



First 

enterprise. 

Conquers the 
Grchome- 



Enters upon 
the twelve 
labours. 



Parerga of 
Heracles. 



Marries 
Deianeira. 



should rale over the heroic race of Perseus ; this public boast he made 
at the instigation of Ate, the great mischief-maker. Here now called 
upon Zeus to confirm this by an irrevocable oath ; this he incautiously 
did. Forthwith Here darted down from Olympus, and by the assist- 
ance of Eileithyias, having retarded the birth of Heracles, hurried 
forward that of Eurystheus. She then returned to Olympus, and in- 
formed him of the birth of Eurystheus, son of the Perseid Sthenelos, 
and that by virtue of his own irrevocable oath the kingdom of Argos 
devolved upon Eurystheus. Zeus was for a moment overpowered by 
this result of his awful oath. Then turning to Ate, his evil counsellor, 
he seized her by the hair and hurled her for ever from Olympus. 

Heracles was only a few months old when Here sent two serpents 
into the apartment where Iphicles and his brother Heracles were 
sleeping ; but the latter strangled them with his own hands. 1 As the 
heroic child grew up, he received every advantage calculated to 
improve his vast natural powers. By Amphitryon he was instructed 
in the management of the chariot, by Castor in fighting in heavy 
armour, by Autolycus in wrestling, whilst Eurytus was his instructor 
in archery, and Linus taught him the art of playing upon the lyre. 2 
His first great enterprise was his fight with and victory over the lion 
of Cythasron, who had made vast havoc among the flocks of Amphi- 
tryon. His next achievement was a conquest single-handed over the 
Orchomenians, by which the Thebans were delivered from the annual 
tribute they had hitherto paid. This valiant action so raised his glory 
amongst the Thebans, that Creon rewarded him with the hand of 
Megara, his eldest daughter. The hero now entered on his term of 
drudging toil and deep peril, in the course of which were accomplished 
the far-famed " twelve labours," of which our limits prevent our giving 
more than the mere titles : — 

1. The fight with the Nemaean lion. 2. Fight with the Lerna?an 
hydra. 3. Capture of the stag of Ceryneia (stag with golden horns 
and brazen feet). 4. Capture of the Erymanthian boar. 5. Cleansing 
of the stables of Augeas. 6. Destruction of the Stymphalian birds. 
7. Capture of the Cretan bull. 8. Capture of the mares of Diomedes. 
9. Capture of the girdle of the queen of the Amazons. 10. Capture of 
the oxen of Geryones in Erytheia. 11. Seizure of the golden apples 
of the Hesperides. 12. Cerberus brought from Hades. 

In addition to these grand achievements, the extra-enterprises, or 
" Parerga," of the hero, were numerous. He chained the Cercopes, 
defeated the plundering Idones ; threw the blood-thirsty Lytierses into 
the Maeander f was in connection with the Argonautic expedition ; 4 
made an expedition against Troy, which he captured, 5 besides a vast 
variety of other warlike deeds. 

Heracles had married Deianeira, with whom, in consequence of an 
involuntary murder which he had committed, he had been compelled 

1 Pind. Nem. i. 49. 2 Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 49 ; Theoc. xxiv. 114. 

3 Schol. ad Theoc. x. 41. 4 Apollod. i. 9. s Eurip. Troad. 802. 



\ 



LEGEND OF HERACLES. 



83 



to go into exile. In fording the river Euenus, the Centaur Nessus, 
who usually carried travellers across, attempted to insult Deianeira; 
Heracles heard her screams, and no sooner had she arrived on the 
other side, than he shot the Centaur to the heart with an arrow. At Slays the 
his last gasp, the Centaur called to Deianeira to take with her his Centaur - 
blood, as the certain means of maintaining her husband's affection. 1 
Heracles, after an absence from Deianeira of fifteen months, at length 
returned homewards. On his route, after storming iEchalia, and 
slaying Eurytus and his sons, he carried prisoner with him Iole, the 
daughter of Eurytus. He now landed at Cenaeum, a promontory of 
Eubcea, whence he despatched Lichas to bring from Trachis the white 
garment, which he was going to wear during the sacrifice he was 
about to offer to Zeus. 

Deianeira, who had heard from Lichas the return of Iole with 
Heracles, fearing to lose her husband's affections, remembered the 
legacy of the dying Centaur. Steeping the sacrificial robe in a pre- Deianeira 
paration made from the blood of Nessus, which unfortunately had been h"^? the 
tainted by the poisoned arrow of Heracles, she despatched it to her sacrificial 
husband, who had no sooner put it on, than he was seized with the robe ° 
most excruciating pains. Eesolved to put an end to his insupportable 
agonies, he raised a funeral pile upon Mount (Eta, which, after having 
ascended, he ordered to be set on fire ; with his last breath enjoining 
his eldest son Hyllus to marry Iole on his reaching maturity. The 
flames now rose aloft, and, amidst tremendous peals of thunder, a cloud His death 
descended from heaven, on which he was wafted to Olympus, there to 
enjoy immortality in an eternal union with the beautiful Hebe, the 
daughter of Here. 2 

The worship of the hero in Greece soon became widely extended. 
"The legend," observes Mr. Grote, 3 " of unquestionable antiquity, here Mr. Grote's 
transcribed from the Iliad, is one of the most pregnant and character- £ n s t e ^ ations 
istic in the Grecian mythology. It explains, according to the religious legend of 
ideas familiar to the old epic poets, both the distinguishing attributes H5racl5s - 
and the endless toil and endurances of Herakles, the most renowned 
and most ubiquitous of all the semi-divine personages worshipped by 
the Hellenes, — a being of irresistible force, and especially beloved by 
Zeus, yet condemned constantly to labour for others, and to obey the 
commands of a worthless and cowardly persecutor. His recompense 
is reserved to the close of his career, when his afflicting trials are 
brought to a close ; he is then admitted to the godhead, and receives 
in marriage Hebe. The twelve labours form a very small fraction of 
the exploits of this mighty being, which filled the Herakleian epics of 
the ancient poets. He is found not only in most parts of Hellas, but 
throughout all the other regions then known to the Greeks, from 
Gades to the river Thermodon in the Euxine, and to Scythia, over- 
coming all difficulties, and vanquishing all opponents. 

1 Soph. Trach. 555. 2 Hes. Theog. 949 ; Horn. Od. xi. 600 ; Soph. Trach. 
3 Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 128. 

3 2 



84 



LEGEND OF HERACLES. 



The my thus 
of Heracles 
reviewed. 



Heracles an 

universal 

hero. 



lleracula of 
the East. 



HerikSlIya, 
old name of 
Bengal. 

Origin of 
Here's name, 



(Eta, a 
Titanic 
position. 



Likhas,a 

Sanscirt 
term. 



" Distinguished families are everywhere to be traced who bear his 
patronymic, and glory in the belief that they are his descendants. 
Among Achseans, Kadmeians, and Dorians, Herakles is venerated; the 
latter especially treat him as their principal hero, — the patron hero-god 
of the race : the Herakleids form among all Dorians a privileged gens, 
in which at Sparta the special lineage of the two kings was included. 

" His character lends itself to mythes, countless in number as well as 
disparate in their character. The irresistible force remains constant, 
but it is sometimes applied with reckless violence against friends as 
well as enemies, sometimes devoted to the relief of the oppressed. 
The comic writers often brought him out as a coarse and stupid 
glutton, while the Athenian philosopher Prodikos, without at all dis- 
torting the type, extracted from it the simple, impressive, and im- 
perishable apologue still known as the ' Choice of Hercules.' " 

In this masterly summary of the main national characteristics of the 
Grecian hero and their treatment, every reader of judgment must 
entirely concur. But while we thus view this famous Greek my thus 
from Hellenic ground, we propose, by the aid of philology and certain 
geographical considerations, to throw an entirely new light upon its 
real origin, as we have already done in the case of Thessaly and the 
Pelasgi. Our limits will necessarily contract our course of demonstra- 
tion ; but the most salient features of the great hero are, firstly, his 
name ; secondly, his ubiquity ; thirdly, his prominent connecting 
associates; fourthly, the scene and the manner of his death. There 
was not a nation of antiquity but had its Heracles. Why was this ? 
No doubt it was a proof of strong national pride ; but this very 
universality of feeling, and, what is of more consequence, this univer- 
sality of name, is to be sought for in some very early type, that made 
both the name and the action attached to it an object of zealous 
emulation. Such a one is to be found in the most ancient language 
and religion of the East : Heracula still figures in the venerable books 
of the Indians. 

The reader will recollect our notice of the early Pelasgian immigration 
into Thessaly; the connection of Cheiron and Achilles with Indian 
names and deities, and the identity of several rivers, mountains, and 
countries in Thessaly, with those in India : to these we have now to 
add that Hericeliya, or Herikeliya, is the Indian name of the pro- 
vince of Bengal. The first compound is significant ; Heri is a name 
of Vishnu, of Indra, or Diupeti, (and here again the Greeks derived 
the name of Jupiter's consort Here). We have already traced the 
Pelasgi to their old province of Pelasa or Behar, and we have now the 
name of Herikeliya leading us to Bengal. Heracles figured in the 
conflict with the Centaurs of Thessaly. There it was, on Mount (Eta, 
a prominent place in the Titanic war, that he closed his career. He 
sends Likhas (Likha is in Sanscrit a writing, in all probability a 
written communication of some sort), to Deianeira, to bring his white 
robe, in which to sacrifice to Zeus. Here we have the characteristic 



LEGEND OF DEUCALION AND HELLEN. 



85 



of the Indian priest ; and, finally, like the Indian Calanus, the gymnoso- The burning 
phist, in the time of Alexander the Great, he ascends the funeral pile S^ 1 ™ 11 * 
at Mount (Eta. Coupling the geographical, national, and religious Brahminical 
terms already noticed, common to India and Thessaly, this has every nte ' 
appearance of a Brahminical sacrifice. Again, in the legend of The tale of 
Heracles, we have the tale of the Cercopes. Zeus (Diupeti), it is said, the Cercu P es - 
involved in a war with the Titans (Dytyas), came to the Cercopes, 
and changed them into monkeys. Here we have the Indian legend of 
Hanuman, and his army of monkeys created by supreme power, which Connection 
fought in favour of Diupeti and the other gods ; which again gives mythology 
another connecting link by which the worship of monkeys became ami religion, 
common to both India and Egypt. 

After the deification of Heracles, his eldest son Hyllus, and the rest Heracieidte 
of his children, were expelled by Eurystheus ; but being kindly pro- expelled, 
tected by the Athenians, 1 Eurystheus invaded Attica, and in the 
struggle, perished by the hand of Hyllus. In this battle fell all the 
sons of Eurystheus, the inveterate task-master of Heracles. The Hsracieidfe 
Heracleids now strove for a restoration to their native land, which was ^in their 
to be decided by the champions chosen from the respective hosts, native 
Hyllus was the representative of the Heracleids, Echemos that of the countr y- 
Tegeans. In this encounter Hyllus fell, and with his fall, the Hera- Retire to the 
cleids retired from their native land, to live under the protection of the Dorians - 
Dorians. On the expiration of the stipulated period of truce, a term of 
one hundred and fifty years, they prepared for a grand and final inva- Grand 
sion. The formidable expedition now set sail from Naupactus towards *J S^ 111011 
Rhion in the Peloponnesus, 2 where the combined force of Dorians and Heracieidae, 
Heracieidae vanquished Tisamenus, the sovereign of Argos, Sparta, and 
Mycenae. 3 

Though the legend of Heracles, and that of the Heracieidae, are 
amongst the most celebrated myths of Greece, there is no doubt that 
the adventures of the latter contain much genuine historical substance. 
Still the sources themselves of that legend began to flow, long before 
Greece had acquired any historical sense, and consequently are not 
entitled to any solid confidence, excepting so far as they furnish matter 
for just inferential speculation. 4 



DEUCALION, HELLEN, AND HIS SONS. 

If the myth of Heracles was coequal with the extent of the ancient 
world, the great legend of the Deluge was not less the peculiar pro- 
perty of every country. But while the name of Heracles was one of 
world-wide adoption, that of Deucalion was not only especially 
Grecian, but more particularly confined to a single province : we 

» Apollod. ii. 8 ; Long. 27 ; Diod. iv. 57. 

2 Paus. iii. 1, 5. 3 Paus. v. 3 ; Polyaen. i. 9. 

; 4 For the best information on this subject, see Mailer's Dorians, and the treatise 
of Haar : Heraclidaram incursiones in Peloponnesum. Groning. 1830. 



86 



LEGEND OF DEUCALION AND HELLEN. 



shall point out the causes of this strange variation. This myth is of 
considerable importance, as opening the path to a fictitious history ; 
a history accepted implicitly as fact by the Greeks, and very often as 
such by modem writers. 
Importance Deucalion is the favoured individual saved by the gods at the time 
of Deucahon. f fa e g enera i deluge ; and his importance is great, inasmuch as he is 
the father of Hellen, the celebrated eponym, or name-giver, of the 
Hellenic race. Zeus, indignant at the awful wickedness of the existing 
Brazen Age, was provoked to send an universal deluge. 1 The de- 
struction attendant upon this general calamity, Deucalion escaped, by 
constructing an ark according to the warnings of Prometheus his 
father. After floating for nine days upon the water, he landed upon 
the summit of Mount Parnassus ; other legends say on Mount Othrys. 
Deucalion now prayed that Zeus would restore mankind. Accordingly 
Mankind himself and his wife were directed to cast stones over their heads ; 
Deucalion 7 those thrown by Deucalion became men, those thrown by Pyrrha, 
and Pyrrha. women. Hence from these stones sprang a stony race, 2 as say the 
etymologizing Greeks, Hesiod and Pindar leading the way. 3 

How firmly the reality of this deluge was impressed upon the 
general belief of the Greeks of the historical age, may be seen by the 
calculations of their chronologers, who pretended to settle the exact 
date of the deluge by reckoning up to that period by genealogies. 
Still farther to fix the reality of the tale, it was commemorated by 
Commemora- sacred ceremonies, especially in Athens, where the priests poured into 
deiu°e J 6 a cav ^7 * n tne tem pl e of Olympian Zeus, holy offerings, because they 
Athens. believed this the very passage by which the waters of the deluge had 
retired. 4 

Sons of Hellen and Amphictyon were the sons of Deucalion. From Hellen 

Hellen. sprang Dorus, Xuthus, and iEolus, among whom he divided his terri- 
tory, and the people of Greece were now called Hellenes. Xuthus, 
who had received the Peloponnesus as his portion, married Creusa, 
Ion, Dorus, by whom he had Ion and Achreus. iEolus assumed the sovereignty 
jEo1us S ' and °^ Thessaly, and the country on the northern side of the Corinthian 
Epony'ms, or Gulf was held by Doras. Hence their people were respectively named 
name-givers. ^chseans, Ionians, iEolians, and Dorians. 5 

We would here repeat an observation we have elsewhere made, 6 
that names so nicely quadrated to nations, carry an appearance too 
precise and artificial for early society, and partake more of poetic crea- 
tion than of historical fact. Accordingly, the Greek genealogical tree, 
bears more or less the impress of artificial pruning. The same 

1 Dion. Hal. i. 17. 

2 The play is upon the words Xctos (laos), people, and Xaa? (laas), a stone. 

3 So Virgil, "Unde homines nati, durum genus." Georg. i. 53. 
4 Paus. xl. 1. 5 Apoll. i. 7, 4. 

6 Ionic Logographers, p. 211 of Hist, of Greek Literature, in the Encyclopaedia 
Metropolitana: Kai Bovdos Xctfiav rhv HiXovrowirov, \k K^tovtrvs ttis 'E^s^swj, 
'A^atov iyytvv/itrt tta.) "leova, k<$ cov 'A^octol x,cci "luvsg KuXovvrai. ». r. X. Apoll. i. 
7, 3. Ed. Firm. Didot, Paris, 1846. 



LEGEND OF THE JEOLIDS. 



87 



eponymizing tendencies have been at work among the poets as well of Eponymizing: 
the east as of the west. By an Indian authority we are informed that ^"th^East. 
Hastin is the founder of Hastinapoor, 1 while the Persian epic carries out 
the same principle. Ferdousi, speaking of Feridun's distribution of his 
possessions to his sons, observes — 

Then next to Tur, Turania's soil he gave, 
Turkan and Cheen to sway, their chieftain brave. 

And again — 

For Iraj next, whose claim alternate rose, 
His sire's behest, Zrania's cities chose. 2 

As Apollodorus, the author of the genealogy of Hellen, has drawn his Causes of 
records from poetic sources, we see the cause of this uniformity of nomen- similarit y- 
clature in the east and west. On the same principle, as a convenient 
resting-point for the political institutions of Greece, the Amphictyonic 
assembly is referred for its name to Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion. 



LEGEND OF THE SOLIDS, OR SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF ^OLUS. 

iEoLUS, who reigned in Thessaly, had seven sons 3 and five Sons and 
daughters. In the first iEolid line may be reckoned Salmoneus, Tyro oJ^JJ;™ 
his daughter, Pelias, and Neleus; Bias, Pero, daughter of Neleus, and 
Melampus Peryclymenus, son of Neleus ; Nestor, and the race of 
Neleus, ending in Codrus. The most celebrated in the second iEolid 
line are Peleus and Jason. In the third iEolid line occurs the cele- 
brated Sysiphus, remarkable for his craft. The grandson of Sysiphus, Myth of 
Bellerophon, is the hero of a romantic train of adventures, first Bellero P n< 
noticed in the Iliad of Homer. 

Anteia, the wife of Prcetus, king of Argos, had conceived a strong 
passion for the noble Bellerophon, but her offers being repelled by the 

1 Vish. Puran. iv. 19. 

try \ ^y y>- u~i J h 

j** jh y j* 

Shah. Nam. Calcut. 1829, vol. i. p. $A 

Mr. Grote (Hist. Gr. vol. i. p. 138, note) has some most pertinent remarks on 
this point. He observes, " How literally and implicitly even the ablest Greeks 
believed in eponymous persons, such as Hellen or Ion, as the real progenitors of 
the races called after him, may be seen by this, that Aristotle gives this common 
descent as the definition of yivos (Metaphysic, iv. p. 118, Brandis). Vivos Xsysra/ 

to fclv to §e, a(p' ov av utri t^utov xiv^troivrog ti; to iivai. Ovtoj yo\(> hiyovTui 

ot ph, "EXX»jvs; to yivog, ot Ti 'laivts' tu oi fih nttl "EXXjjvoj, ot It o.<7ro"luvo$i itvat 
t^utov ytwytravTos ." 

3 His sons were Sysiphus, Cretheus, Deion, Salmoneus, Athamas, Magnes, 
Perieres. His five daughters were Canace, Peisidice, Perimede, Alcyone, and 
Calyce. 



88 



LEGEND OF BELLEROPHON. 



young hero, her love was turned into the deadliest hatred. She now 
Anteia accused Bellerophon to her husband of having made improper pro- 
Beiierophon. P osa ls to her, and insisted on his being put to death. Proetus, how- 
ever indignant, refused to commit a deed of bloodshed in his own 
palace ; he, however, despatched him to his father-in-law Iobates, king 
of Lycia, at the same time giving into his charge a folded tablet full of 
Perilous symbols portending his destruction. 1 In order to carry out these mur- 
enterprisesof d erous instructions, the most hazardous enterprises were allotted to 

Bellerophon. » * . . 

Bellerophon. He was to attack the monstrous Ohunsera, whose lorm 





siays the was a horrible compound of a lion, goat, and dragon. Bellerophon 
chimira I10W mounte d tne winged horse, Pegasus, and thus soaring aloft in the 
and Soiymi. air, slew the Chimasra from on high with his arrows ; the warlike 
Solymi also, as well as the Amazons, were added to his dangers and 
his conquests. In the song of the Theban bard, Bellerophon 

Springs joyous on his winged steed, in brazen armour dight, 
From iEther's deserts deep and chill, 
The quivered female legions, smite 
His arrows true. 



II. vi. 168. 



LEGEND OF THE PELOPIDS. 



And dire Chimasra, from whose gorge the blasts of glowing light 
The welkin fill, 
And Solymi he slew. 1 

On his return to Lycia, a band of the bravest Lycians who had been 
placed in ambuscade, rushed out upon him; he slew them all. 
Iobates, now convinced that it was hopeless to attempt his life any 
farther, showed him the tablet he had received from Prcetus, and gave 
him his daughter in marriage, together with half his kingdom. Such Marries the 
are the outlines of the myth of Bellerophon, whose grandchildren, iStE 1 ° f 
Sarpedon and Glaucus, fought at the siege of Troy. Eustathius 
remarks that Homer knows nothing of Pegasus in this miraculous en- 
terprise. It is, however, in strict keeping with the oriental epic. In 
India each god has his particular vahan or vehicle. Thus Vishnu The vahan 
rides upon the Garuda, a being with the head and wings of a bird, of the^^ids 
and the body, legs, and arms of a man. In the Kali Yug (Iron Age) an Indian 
he is to appear as an armed warrior mounted on a winged horse. In the 00 nn " 
Persian epic, Hoshang, like Bellerophon, subdues and tames Raksh, a Vishnu, 
winged monster, whom he mounts and uses in all his wars against ^ 1 °d Shang ' 

the DiwS, Or giants. Bellerophon. 

The fourth iEolid line consists of Athamas and his successors, of 
whom our limits will not permit us to treat. We therefore pass on to 
the myth of the Pelopids. 



THE LEGEND OF THE PELOPIDS. 

Pelops, the Eponym or name-giver of the Peloponnesus, was the Myth of the 
son of Tantalus, whose residence was near Mount Sipylus in Lydia ; Pelo P lds - 
his sister's name was Niobe. Possessed of unbounded riches and 
happiness, he seemed placed above human wants. The gods even 
received him at their banquets, an honour which he hospitably ac- 
knowledged by inviting them to his own. But, unhappily, elated by Tantalus 
such unbounded privileges, Tantalus stole from the gods nectar and ^ ] ^ s 
ambrosia, and disclosed their secrets. To add still farther to the 
horrors of his domestic life, he slew his son Pelops, whom he served 
up to the gods at a banquet ; they, however, knowing the horrid nature 
of the food set before them, would not touch it. Demeter, however, 
being absorbed by grief for her lost daughter, 2 had eaten a part of the 
shoulder. The gods now commanded Hermes to place the limbs of Pelops 
Pelops in a cauldron, and thus to restore him to life again. As one [ffjby m^gic 
shoulder, however, was wanting, Demeter supplied its loss with an process. 

1 "Itttov vrrtgoivr dvafiks 5' lu6v$ h'oTXta x a ^-PC°^ ( ' s 
2u» it xuvm xou tot 'Ajtoifyvidcov 

KiSi^Oi "V^t/^^a? OC.T0 XoXT&IV IQYIfAOU 
To^OTOiV (ieckXlUV yVVUXilov ffT^OLTOV, 

K«i X/'^a/oav tv{> Tv'iot<ra.v xou loXvpovs tTiipvtv. 

Pind. Olyrn. xiii. 86-90. 
2 Thetis is the name mentioned by some authors. Vide Schol. ad Pind. 01. 
i. 37. 



90 



LEGEND OF NIOBE. 



of Tantalus. 



ivory one ; whence his descendants, the Pelopidse, were said to have 
Punishment one shoulder as white as ivory. 1 The punishment of Tantalus was 
terrible : consigned to the lower world, with fruit and water appa- 
rently within his reach, he was doomed for ever to grasp at them un- 
availingly, thus leaving hunger and thirst perpetually unappeased ; 2 
whilst over his head impended a huge rock, ever threatening to fall 
and crush him. 3 



Myth of 
Niobe. 



Niobe's 
children 
slain by 
Apollo and 
Artemis. 



Niobe and 
Daphne 
representa- 
tives of 
Indian 
doctrines. 



Principles 
developed in 
the Maneveh 
Dherma 
Sastra. 



Rambha 
changed to 
stone. 



THE LEGEND OF NIOBE. 

Niobe, the sister of Pelops, was equally the subject of tragical and 
romantic events. She had been married to Amphion, king of Thebes, 
by whom she became mother of six sons and six daughters. Though 
placed on an intimate footing with Leto, 4 the mother of Apollo and 
Artemis, her exulting pride broke forth in disdainful comparisons 
between the number of her own children and that of Leto. Indignant 
at this presumption, Apollo and Artemis slew her entire offspring. 
Niobe herself, thus rendered disconsolate and childless, repaired to 
Mount Sipylus, where she had the exquisite misery of suffering per- 
petual agony under the form of stone : — 

And, ever marble, ever suffering stands. 5 

Niobe changed to stone, and Daphne to laurel, are the repre- 
sentatives of religious doctrines known first in India and then in 
Greece, long previous to the times of Homer. They are doctrines 
again strongly revived in Greece B.C. 540-510, by Pythagoras, and 
by him ranging up, through Hesiod and Orpheus, to the great Indian 
school. The leading principles of these two metamorphoses are 
plainly stated in the Maneveh Dherma Sastra : " For sins committed 
in the body a man shall, after death, assume a vegetable or a mineral 
form." 6 The fate of Niobe is found duly chronicled by Valmiki in 
that of the nymph Rambha, long before the Homeric writings. 
Eambha was a beautiful nymph, who had attempted to captivate 
with her charms the affections of Vishwa Mitra, upon which daring 
attempt the great ascetic pronounced no very lenient sentence : — 

The sage, indignant, thus the maiden hailed — 

" Since thou wouldst lure me, Eambha, with thy charms 

Of beauty boundless, in this sacred grove, 

Cursed by my art, a myriad years remain 

In living stone." 7 

The Orphic and Pythagorean belief in vegetable metamorphosis is 
not less clear in the teaching of Empedocles. What implicit credence 



2 Horn. Odyss. xi. 582. 
4 Sapph. Frag. 82, Schneid. 
6 Man. Dherm. Sast. xii. 9, Slok 



1 Tzetzes ad Lycoph. 152 ; Pind. 01. i. 37. 

3 Eurip. Or. 5 ; Pind. Isth. viii. 21. 

5 Horn. II. xxiv. 617 ; Paus. i. 21, 5. 

7 Rambhan kopasamavishta idam vachanamabravit 
Yasmallobhyasye Rambhe, mamatmagunasampada 
Tasmachchailamye bhutwa sthasyamlha. tapovane 
Varshanamayatan. Ityadi. Bamayma, C. Slok. 



LEGEND OF NIOBE. 



91 



this doctrine had obtained in the general system of the Hindoos mav 

O J 

be seen in the writings of Calidasa, the Indian Shakspeare, whose 
drama of the " Hero and the Ivyrnph," depicts the prince Puriiravas, 
as restoring to her natural form, the object of his love, who had been 
transformed into a vine : — 

Pur. What means this strange emotion — as I gaze 
Upon this vine, no blossoms deck its boughs ; 
Isipped by the falling rains, like briny tears, 
That wash the ruddy freshness from the lips, 
The buds have perished, and the mournful shrub 
All unadorned appears to pine in absence. 
No bees regale her with their songs — silent 
And sad, she lonely shows the image 
Of my repentant love, who now laments 
Her causeless indignation. I will press 
The melancholy likeness to my heart. 

Air. 

Vine of the wilderness, behold 

A lone, heart-broken wretch in me, 
Who dreams in his embrace to fold 

His love, as wild he clings to thee. 
And might relenting fate restore 

To these fond arms the nymph I mourn, 
I'd bear her hence, and never more 

To these forbidden haunts return. 

{Goes to embrace the Vine, which is transformed to UrvasI.) 

What can this mean ! through every fibre spreads 
The conscious touch of UrvasI — yet all 
I deemed her charms deceived me — let me wake 
And realize the vision, or dispel it. 
'Tis no deceit — 'Tis she — my best beloved (faints). 
UrvasI (w tears). Revive my Lord ! 1 

Both Empedocles and Pythagoras held the doctrine of the Metemp- Orpheus, 
sychosis, and both equally prohibited the eating of animal food. Empedocles, 
Empedocles held that plants had souls, and that into plants, as well Pythagoras, 
as into animals, the vital principle passed after death : — 

A boy and a girl was I once, whom you see, 
And a shrub, and a bird, and a fish of the sea. 2 

With this exactly agrees the doctrine of the Maneveh Dherma 
Sastra. " Souls sunk in darkness in this world" transmigrate into 
" vegetable and mineral substances, worms, insects, reptiles, and fish," sources 
&c. The author then particularises the various punishments. For a J^^, 
gross crime against a spiritual or natural father, the sinner migrates 
one hundred times into the forms of grasses, of shrubs with thick-set 

1 Vikrama and UrvasI, by Professor Wilson, p. 255. 

2 "H5»j yezp tot \yu yi\'o(x.v\i kovoo; Tt xogti T£, 
Qctftvo; t", oiuvos n xai i% dXo; if&Tugo; t%/So$. 

Sturz. ad Emped. Frag. p. 466. 



92 



LEGEND OF NIOBE. 



Migratory 
punish- 
ments. 



Scene of 
Niobe's 
transforma- 
tion. 



NiobS a 
famous 
subject of 
sculpture. 



Pelops comes 
from Lydia. 



USnomaus 
and his 
daughter 
Hippoda- 
meia. 
Pelops 
supplied by 
Poseidon 
with chariot 
and horses. 



Pelops is 
prince of 
Pisa. 



Domestic 
quarrels 
augmented 
with 

Agamemnon. 



stems, and of deciduous and twining plants. 1 He who steals grain in 
the husk will be born again as a rat ; if he purloins meat, as a vulture ; 2 
if he steals carriages, he will be born a camel. 3 In these doctrines, 
then, we discern the whole cycle of the Greek and Roman metamor- 
phoses, long before they are visible in the Hellenic writings of the 
western world. 

We must not forget, in our estimate of this myth of Niobe, that 
the final scene of her change into stone is laid out of Hellas, and in a 
part of Asia. 4 The implicit credit that was attached to this tale may 
be seen by the fact that in the time of Pausanias, people still imagined 
they could see the petrified form of Niobe on Mount Sipylus. 5 

The myth of Niobe furnished ample scope for ancient art, of which 
one of the most celebrated specimens adorned the pediment of the 
temple of Apollo Sosianus, at Rome, where it was discovered in the 
year 1583, This magnificent group, which the Romans themselves 
were uncertain if it were the work of Praxiteles or of Scopas, 6 is now 
at Florence. 

When Pelops came from Lydia into Greece, (Enomaus, the son of 
Ares, was sovereign of Pisa, a district adjoining Olympia. The king 
of Pisa having been informed by an oracle that his death would follow 
the marriage of his daughter Hippodameia, refused her to every suitor 
who could not beat him in a chariot race from Olympia to the Isthmus 
of Corinth: the defeated competitor was doomed to forfeit his life. 
Already had thirteen unsuccessful claimants for Hippodameia's hand 
paid the penalty with their lives, when Pelops entered the lists. 
Induced by his earnest prayers, the god Poseidon supplied him with 
a golden chariot and winged horses, 7 by which he won Hippodameia. 
Myrtillus, the charioteer of (Enomaus, induced by Hippodameia her- 
self, loosened the wheels of the king's chariot, who was thus over- 
turned, and perished in the race. Pelops now became prince of 
Pisa, and amongst his numerous family were Trcezen and Epidaurus, 
who gave their names to two Argolic cities, and Atreus and Thyestes, 
who figure prominently in Greek legend. 

The domestic quarrels in this unhappy family increased with 
Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, and iEgisthus, the son of Thyestes. 
Thyestes had intrigued with iErope, his brother's wife ; he had also 
plundered from his flocks the lamb with the golden fleece. 8 This 



Man. Dh. Sast. C. 12, Slok. 58. 
2 Maneveh Dherma Sast. C. 12, Slok. 62. 3 Ibid. Slok. 67. 

4 Apollod. iii. 5, 6. s Paus. i. 21, 5. 

6 Vide Welcker, Zeitschrift far die alte Kunst, p. 589. 

7 Pind. 01. i. 109. The legend of the winged horses was to be seen on the chest 
of Cypselus. Paus. v. 17. 8 Eust. ad Horn. p. 184. 



LEGENDS OF THEBES 



93 



animal had been placed amongst the flocks of Atreus by the craft of 
Hermes, expressly with a design to rain the whole family. In order 
to take a more terrible revenge, Atreus pretended to be reconciled to Revenge of 
Thyestes, and accordingly invited him to Mycenae. After murdering Atreus - 
the two sons of Thyestes, Atreus served up their flesh at the banquet, 
and their father ignorantly partook of the dire repast. Thyestes, on 
seeing the bones of his children brought in, was horror-struck at the 
sight, and, cursing the house of Tantalus, hastily fled. So terrible was Curse of 
the spectacle, that even Helios turned back his chariot to the east, that ^ffl? &nd 
he might flv from the horrible scene. 1 Soon were the curses of Thy- Helios.^ 
estes fulfilled, for not only was the kingdom of Atreus afflicted with 
famine, but the whole of his family became involved in the most 
tragical disasters. 2 Still later, even the son of Atreus, Agamem- Fate of 
non, " the king of men," blest with unrivalled riches and power, Agamemnon, 
the sovereign of wealthy Mycenae, and the supreme chief of the com- 
bined Hellenic force at Troy — even he was doomed to taste the bitter- 
ness of Thyestes' protracted curse. In complete ignorance of the 
treachery of his wife Clytemnestra, he had now returned victorious 
to his native land from the plains of Troy. Scarcely had he landed, is murdered 
when iEgisthus, the base paramour of Clytemnestra, aided by the and'auem- 
treacherous queen herself, slaughtered Agamemnon and his comrades, nestra." 
" as at his crib men slay an ox." 3 At the same time perished Cas- 
sandra, the prophetic daughter of Priam, 4 murdered by the hand of 
Clytemnestra. Orestes, however, the only son of Agamemnon, was 
saved by his nurse, and placed in security with the Phocian Strophius. 

At length, Orestes, now grown to manhood, returned, and fulfilling iEgisthus 
the retribution announced by the gods, slew iEgisthus, his father's Orestes', 
murderer, and Clytemnestra, his gulity mother, recovered the kingdom 
of Mvcence, and succeeded to the sovereignty of Menelaus in Sparta. 

Such is the history of the powerful, wealthy, but unfortunate dynasty 
of the Pelopids. 

LEGENDS OF THEBES. 

The celebrity of Thebes originates with its first great founder Cadmus, Cadmus, 
the son of Agenor and Telphusa. His sister Europa had been carried fhSfe" ° f 
off by Zeus to Crete ; and now, in company with his brothers Phenix 
and Cilix, he set out in search of her, at the express command of her 
father. After long wanderings, the oracle at Delphi directed him to 
follow a cow of a particular description until she should sink down 
with fatigue. 5 He accordingly followed the animal to the site of 
Thebes, where the conditions of the oracle were fulfilled. A neigh- 
bouring fountain, whither he had despatched some people for water, gj ays t } je 
was guarded by a tremendous dragon, the progeny of Ares. This f™^ 1 ^ 1 the 
monster Cadmus slew, and, by the advice of Athene, sowed his teeth 

1 Soph. Ajax. 1266. 2 Hvgin. Fab. 88. 3 Horn. Odyss. xi. 411. 

4 Od. iv. 512-537. 5 Paus. ix. 12, 1. 



94 



LEGEND OF ACTION. 



Seven years, 
servitude of 
Cadmus. 



Wedding of 
Cadmus and 
Harmonia. 



Celebrity of 
the daughters 
of Cadmus. 



Myth of 
Pentheus. 



Opposition 
of Pentheus 
to Dionysus. 

Is slain by 
the Theban 
Bacchantes. 



in the earth, out of which armed men sprang up, who slew each other, 
with the exception of five, whom the legend names as the ancestors of 
the Thebans. At the instigation of Ares, Zeus now compelled 
Cadmus to a servitude of seven years, after which he obtained the 
government of Thebes, with Harmonia for his wife, to whom he pre- 
sented the magnificent necklace made by Hephaistos, together with a 
beautiful peplus, a species of shawl. The concourse of the gods at 
this wedding was splendid in the extreme, and corresponded with 
their nuptial gifts and congratulations. The offspring of this marriage 
was one son, named Polydorus, and four daughters, Semele, Ino, 
Autonoe, and Agave. The five great families of the dragon race were 
named Sparti. 1 All the daughters of Cadmus were celebrated in 
legendary song. Semele became the favourite of Zeus, but perished 
on a visit of the god, overpowered by the awful majesty and the blaze 
of lightnings attendant upon the " king of gods and men." Ino was 
the consort of Athamas, the son of JEolus ; while Agave, who married 
Echion, one of the Sparti, gave birth to Pentheus. This prince 
violently opposed the worship of Dionysus, who, after wandering over 
India, Asia, and Thrace, now came to Thebes at the head of a troop 
of Asiatic females. Though Cadmus and the prophet Tlresias ac- 
knowledged the divinity of the god, no miracles of Dionysus could 
assuage the vehement opposition of Pentheus. A large body of 
Theban women, headed by his mother Agave, influenced by the frenzy 
of Dionysus, were celebrating his orgies on Mount Cithseron. In order 
to survey the female multitude, Pentheus had climbed a tall pine tree ; 
the female worshippers detected him, pulled down the tree, and tore 
him in pieces, his mother Agave herself being the most eager in the 
attack. 



Myth ot 
Actason. 



Is trans- 
formed into 
a stag. 



THE LEGEND OF ACTION. 

Autonoe, the remaining daughter of Cadmus, was mother ot 
Action, the renowned hunter. He had been trained in the art 
by the Centaur Cheiron, and had been a favourite companion of 
Artemis. He at length, however, became the subject of her anger, 
either because he had seen the goddess while bathing in the vale of 
Gargaphia, 2 or because he had loved and sued for Semele, 3 or, as 
another legend states, 4 because of his presumptuous vaunts of superior 
skill in hunting. Being transformed into a stag by the goddess, he 
was set upon and devoured by his own dogs. Evidences of the 
Orchomenian tradition were not wanting. The very rock of Actaeon, 
haunted by his spectre — the rock upon which he used to sleep when 
fatigued in the chase — was shown on the road to Megara, not far from 
Plata?a. 5 



1 2cra£<ro/, sown. 

3 Accusil. ap Apollod. iii. 4, 4. 

s Paus. ix. 2, 3 ; Apollod. iii. 4, 3 # 



2 Callim. Hymn in Pallad. 110. 
4 Diod. iv. 81. 



LEGEND OF (EDIPUS. 95 

The venerable Cadmus and his consort, now retiring among the Cadmus 
Illyrians, were changed into serpents, and, by the permission of Zeus, ]!J^J l n t0 the 
were wafted to the Elysian fields. 1 fields. 




THE LEGEND OF (EDIPUS. 

With the Theban king Laius, the son of Labdacus, commences a 
series of tragic events unparalleled in the wild catastrophes of anti- 
quity. Laius having been forewarned by an oracle that he would fall Myth of 
by the hands of his son, on the birth of (Edipus, had him exposed on °3dipus. 
a wild part of Mount Cithseron. Here he was discovered by the 
herdsman of Polybus, king of Corinth. As (Edipus grew up, being 
resolved to know his parentage, he applied to Delphi. The oracle 
admonished him that, should he return to his native country, it would 
be his destiny to slay his father and become the husband of his 
mother. As Corinth was, as he imagined, his native country, he 
resolved to abandon that city. It so chanced, however, that as he cEdipus 
was leaving Delphi by the " Schistos Hodos," or forked road that jJJJJJj 
leads to Boeotia and Phocis, at the points where the roads divide he 
met his own father Laius, riding in a chariot ; 2 and as Polyphetes, 
the charioteer, seemed inclined to push him from the road, a fierce 
struggle ensued, in which (Edipus slew both Polyphetes, his father, 
and his retinue. Thus was fulfilled one part of the oracle. Creon, p ar t of the 
the brother of Jocasta, the relict of the late king Laius, succeeded to JJfgJf d 
the kingdom of Thebes. His succession, however, occurred at a most 
disastrous time, for Thebes was now scourged by a terrible monster, 



Eurip. Bacch. 



2 Schol. ad Europ. Pheniss. 39. 



96 



LEGEND OF CEDIPUS. 



Prodigy of called the Sphinx. This prodigy, sent by the wrath of Here, 1 took 
the Sphinx. post upon Mount Phikium, close to the city. The Sphinx had the 
face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a lion, and pro- 
pounded to the Thebans a riddle which she had learned from the 
Muses, and every passenger who was unable to solve it the monster 
killed. Induced by this calamity, and the universal distress, Creon 
offered the crown and his sister jocasta to any individual who should 
(Edipus at solve the enigma. At this critical period (Edipus arrived, and made 
Joives tne nis appearance before the Sphinx, who propounded the following 
riddle. riddle : "A creature with four feet has two feet and three feet, with 
but one voice ; but its feet vary, and when it has most it is weakest." 




(Edipus, 
king of 
Thebes. 



Plague at 
Thebes. 



Interview 
with Tiresias. 



(Edipus solved the enigma by observing that it was man, whereupon 
the Sphinx cast herself from the rock and disappeared. (Edipus, now 
become king of Thebes, unwittingly married Jocasta, his mother, so 
that the oracle was thus fulfilled. The dismal result of this incestuous 
alliance, of which no one was then aware, was the dreadful visitation 
of Thebes by a plague, and the oracle enjoined the expulsion of the 
murderer of Laius. (Edipus now pronounced upon the murderer a 
solemn curse, with sentence of exile whenever detected : little did he 
imagine himself to be the guilty individual. Tiresias, the blind 
prophet, however, after a bitter and protracted interview with the 



1 $7k okor,v rlzt, KaS/Lii'io.criv oXi6oov. 



Hes. Tneog, 326. 



LEGEND OF (EDIPUS. 



97 



king, strongly shadowed forth that monarch as the murderer of his 
father, and finally left the palace, observing — 

Thee do I tell, that him thou searchest out 

With threats and proclamations, yea that man, 

That very man is here ; a settler deemed, 

But soon approved a Theban born ; no welcome news 

To him : for blind, once seeing — poor, once rich — 

Shall he o'er foreign lands assay his way, 

A wanderer with his staff. 1 

The dramatist who relates this terrific tale then bursts out in an awful 
apostrophe to the guilty : — 

Where lurks the wretch with gore-stained hands, Choral 

Horror of horrors who hath wrought, apostrophe 
Denounced by Delphi's rocky lands, t0 . tlie 

Prophetic ? Time it were he sought £ ullt y- 
To wing in his flight 
A foot strong and light 
As the coursers of the storm-driven cloud. 
For armed with volley'd light, and with thunders pealing loud, 
See the mighty son of Jove 
Spring in fury from above ! 2 

A fierce altercation now ensued between (Edipus and Creon, whom Quarrel of 
the former accused of treacherous designs upon his crown, threatening ^ Q P US aml 
at the same time to put him to death. At this juncture Jocasta in- 
terposed, and Creon retired. At length by comparing the information 
given by Jocasta, with the place where he himself was deserted, and 
afterwards discovered, the wretched (Edipus is convinced of his inces- 
tuous and murderous connection. To Jocasta, (Edipus gave an 
account of his visit to Delphi, and of the horrible revelations made by 
the oracle : — 

From Corinth's realm bv starry light 

Forth measuring my hapless flight, relates his 

I gat me where I ne'er might see journey from 

Fulfilled that direst prophecy ! Corinth. 
Toil-worn I reach that very spot 
Where, as thou say'st, his dismal lot 



1 Azyco Vi aoC tov Hv^pa rodrov, ov iruXut 
ZrinT; cituXuv, xa.vaxr,ova , o'uv <po*ov 
T«v Autziov, ovto? kirriv IvdolSs, 

S'ivog Xoy'M ftzroixo;, lira, V iyytvhs 
^av^trzrai S'/i/iaTo;' oul' 'hvQwiTai 
Tr, \vfj.<pooa.. ru(£\o; yuo kx ICboox'oros 
Ka.) cr-iw^a? ce.tr) irXovirlou |*sn>jv z-rt 
IZxriTTtu TPohztxvv; yxToiv iftTogzutrtrui. 

CEdip. Tyr. 449, 456. 

2 T/j Svtiv a ho-wtiiriia &z\<p)e jTits tztpcc 
"App'/ir appfiruv <rzXz<ra,vrct <poiv'ioii<ri ;££»<m 
"Cloa viv kiXXtzbuv 

iTTiWV O~6-VUOW7ZO01 

Quyu. vr'abct. vufjJocv. 
"EvoTko; ya.o It' ecb-rov Wzv^uaxzi 
Hud) xx) o-tzootkTs o Aiog yzvzrt&s' 

CEdip. Tyr. 463-470.. 
[ll. G.] H 



98 



LEGEND OF CEDIPUS. 



Meets his 
father, Lai us, 
and the 
herald. 



Laius and 
his retinue 
slain. 



The monarch met. I hide it not ! 
To thee divulge I all the truth. 
When wending on my way, in sooth, 
There met me on the triple road 
A herald in a car that rode ; 
Where, drawn hy fiery steeds, was seen 
One by his side of aged mien, 
Just as thou say'st ! There met they me, 
And both would urge me forcefully 
From off the road. In passion rough 
I smote him who would force me off, 
That charioteer. The aged man 
Marked watchful where I passing ran, 
And from his car, with double goad, 
Smote with its full descending load 
On my mid-brows — but yet, I trow, 
He paid a penalty enow ! 
For quick, staff-smitten by this hand, 
The chief rolled prostrate on the land 
From out his car — I slay his band ! 
Should this same stranger of the road 
And Laius be of kindred blood, 
Than I, e'en I, who more hath need, 
Unhappy wretch ! of pity's meed? 
What mortal man on earth hath stood 
Abhorrent more to heaven and God P 1 

In order to set at rest his horrible doubts, and calm the deep 
anguish of his mind, (Edipus now sent for the herdsman who had 
saved him on the desolate wilds of Cithseron, and after many evasions 
succeeded in unravelling the whole truth. Previous to this horrible 
discovery, Jocasta, with a woman's penetration, had discerned the 



* tw ~K.o^iv6lxv 

"Atrrgois to Xoitfov tx/tirgovuivo; "x,6'ova. 

*E<ptvyov, 'iv6a (ayiVot o^po'tf&'/iv kocxuv 
X^jjir^wv ovi!$v tuv ifzaiv TzXovftivct. 
'SrU'Xju £ ly.voZu.ui Toucrdz tou; "^u^ovi iv ols 
2y tov TUgotvvov tovtov b\Xutr$oct Xsyu;. 
Ka) <roi, yvvai, TccXnQi? TgivrXy; 

"Or xzXiuQou tsj<tB' obomopuv vzXecs, 
'EvraZ&d ftoi xnpv\ Tt xeoir) tfcoXixvis 
'Avyip atfriwis If&fisfia;, otov erv 
3vv'/ivrie&£ov xk\ 'ohov fjo o f bytftav 
Avto; o rfgirfivs T/>o; fiiav riXoiuviTviv. 

Kiyit) TOV iXTgttfOVTBi, TOV T0fl%>jAaT»JV, 

TSoiia/ h' l^yrti' xoo'i p o Tgifffivs u; ogqi, 
*Ox°v •jraga>itTU%mra tw^'/htus (jl'utov 
Kctgco IttfXols xIvtdoht'i y.ou xctQixtTO. 
Ov jaw itrviv y stktsv, oiXXu ffuvroftous 

~2iX^TT^0O TVTTitS \x Tnall VITTiOS 

M'io-'/i; «*o'mj; ilfvi ixxvxi'v^STotr 
KTeiv&i Tt tovs ^v/x-roiVTec;, u tu %ivcfi 
Toutoj <7T(>o<r'/iMi Aoi'ioo Tt ffvyyivis, 
T/'f Tov^s vuv io-T dvbgo; aSXiuTt^as' 
lis ixfyo}u'if/.(uv poxXXov oiv y'lvoiT a.v/i^ 



(Edip. Tyr. 794, 



816. 



LEGEND OF (EDIPUS. 



99 



fatal tendency of the examination of the herdsman by (Edipus. She 
rushed distractedly from his presence, and committed suicide by jocasta 
hanging. Meanwhile the unhappy king of Thebes sought out his g£™Jfg ts 
wretched consort, and filled with some frenzied and unearthly power — 

With fearful yells, as with some demon guide, 
Full against the portals urging, 
See the double doors divide — 
Wrench'd the hollow staples, wide 
From their deepest fixture surging. 
See upon the floor he sinks, the chamber of his bride ! 
Horror ! horror ! there he views 
Dangling in the twisted noose, 
Jocasta's lifeless form ! 
Soon, poor wretch ! with bellowing roar, the hanging knot he rends, 
Sinks the corse upon the floor, and all in horror ends ! l 

The frenzied (Edipus now tore the gold-embossed clasps from the CEdipus 
robes of Jacosta, and repeatedly smote their sharp points into his eye- himself, 
balls, until, in the strong language of the tragic poet, " a black hail 
storm of blood -drops fell." 2 

Thrilled with shuddering horror, the king's attendants awaited the 
opening of the gates, when such a spectacle presented itself, as even 
an enemy must pity. Groping his way in the gloom of blindness, the 
wretched (Edipus now made his appearance : — 

Oh ! my cloud of darkness, falling 

Unutterably dread, appalling, 

Unvanquished night art thou, 

And waves thy crest of gloom 

O'er Ruin's brow ! 
Ah me ! ah me ! yet — yet again resume 

The maddening shafts of woe 

Their bitter flight : 
Those goads of memory and of bleeding sight ! 3 



Auvov T diitra;, u; vlpYiyirou rivos, 

TivXat; ^i<ffXa.7s hnXur , lx Ti <^iv6(Jt.iveov 
"ExXtvi xolXct xXyfyct, x o./at'^tii ffriyy. 

Oil §>j X^ifAOKfrnV tyiv yvvoux iitr'ti'Soft.iv, 

TIXixTgotT; ieo^uts tftTiWkyyfAZv/iv. o 
"0*w; opa, viv, "%ava. ^u^tihis TaXcti, 

XkXS, xgiftc&ffTTiv d^ravyiv. irfii Ti yy 

" Exuto TXwftav, %uva. T qv TavS'ivT bgav. 

(Ed'ip. Tyr. 1260, 1267. 

1 opov ft'iXets 

"Oftfigos %Kkci£wi uifAocros t WiyyiTO. 

(Edip. Tyr. 1279. 

'hy o-xotov 

Ns<paj ifAov uvfoTgovrov, irfitfXoiiivov olQarov, 

' A^dfAOiTOV Ti XOU O^VffOVQlffTOV OV. 
O'/fAOl 

O'/ftOI ICCiX' UV&IS' OIOV llffibu f/C OCfAOC 

YJivTpuv Ti tuvT o'lffTpriuot, xou uvnttn KCtXMV. 

(Edip. Tyr. 1313, 1318. 
H 2 



100 



LEGEND OF (EDIPUS. 



Is dependent 
upon his two 
sons. 



Imprecates 
curses upon 
his sons. 



Death of 
GEdipus and 
discord of his 
sons. 



Polyneices at 
the court of 
Adrastus. 



Argive host 

before 

Thebes. 



Its descrip- 
tion by 
^Eschylus. 



The wretched king now became dependent upon his sons, Eteocles 
and Polyneices, and resolving that nothing should remind him of his 
former state and grandeur, he had laid aside every luxury and orna- 
ment that could recall his once exalted rank. Unhappily Polyneices 
one day set before him the silver table and magnificent wine-cup of 
Cadmus, which Laius had been accustomed to use. No sooner was 
the old king aware of this, than, overpowered by the recollection of his 
once regal magnificence and that of his father, his frenzied mind was 
overturned by the shock, and he imprecated undying hostility and 
bitter curses upon his sons ; they were heard by the goddess Erynnys. 
Once again, on the occasion of some unfeeling insult, he prayed the 
gods that they might perish by each other's hands. The wretched 
king now became a wanderer from the halls of his fathers, his trem- 
bling steps supported by his daughter Antigone. After the death of 
(Edipus, the parental curse was too soon apparent in the fierce discord 
of his sons Eteocles and Polyneices, who had agreed to rule at Thebes 
each annually. Eteocles having tasted the sweets of power, refused to 
resign the throne to Polyneices, whom he expelled. The exiled 
prince repaired to the court of Adrastus, king of Argos, whose 
daughter Argeia he married. The king of Argos now resolved to 
restore his son-in-law Polyneices to his throne. Of all the Argive 
chiefs, Amphiaraus alone opposed the expedition ; 1 and as the de- 
scendant of the prophet Melampus, foretold the death of himself, and 
of the leading chiefs. Nor could his reluctance be overcome, until he 
was prevailed upon by Eriphyle, his wife, who was sordid enough to 
barter the life of her husband for the tempting gifts of Polyneices. 
This prince had brought with him from Thebes the marriage robe and 
necklace of Harmonia, presented to her by the gods, on the occasion 
of her nuptials. And now, tempted by this magnificent bribe, the 
sordid wife induced Amphiaraus to join the expedition. As the war- 
like prophet was mounting his chariot to depart, he enjoined his sons 
to avenge his death by slaying the base Eriphyle. The Argive army 
now made its appearance before the walls of Thebes, headed by the 
seven chiefs, Adrastus, Capaneus, Amphiaraus, Hippomedon, Tydeus 
Parthenopseus, and the exile Polyneices, a number which gave rise to 
the celebrated tragedy of iEschylus, " The Seven against Thebes." On 
the approach of this mighty force, preceded by clouds of cavalry 
terror reigned within the city : — 
Hark to the tramp 
From the hostile camp ! 

Like the crested steeds of Ocean, 

Flowing vast in motion, 

Their waving horse appears and heads the wild array ! 
And the earth-clouds that rise 
Vast and silent to the skies 

Their faithful message say. 



Find. Nem. ix. 30. 



2 Apoll. iii. 6, 



LEGEND OF THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. 



101 



And the thunder of the clanging hoof that startles our repose 
Near and more near is rolling through the air 
O'er the plain from our foes, 
With deepening roar, 
As checkless pour 
The torrent hosts, that through their mountain channel tear. 1 

Before these terrors of the citizens, Ete.ocles maintained a resolute Resolution of 
countenance. " What ! " said he, " does the mariner gain safety by Eteocles - 
quitting the helm, and flying to the prow, when his bark is labouring 
amid the ocean billows ? " and his resolute advice was at length 
effectual in calming their fears. A messenger now entered, giving a 
terrific description of the seven chiefs, who had posted themselves, 
each before one of the seven gates. Tydeus faced the Prcetcean gate — 

His triple plumes dark waving fly. 
And crest his helm, o'erarching high : 
The brazen bells within his shield 
The note of terror wildly yield. 
That shield a haughty bearing shows — 
A sky with stars that blazoned glows — 
Shines in mid-orb the full moon bright, 
That boast of heaven and eye of night. 
Such vaunting bearings of his arms 
He madly shows mid war's alarms. 
Eings wildly through the crowded ranks 
His war-cry on the river's banks. 
As champs the bit, to be at large, 
Some war-horse, ere the battle charge, 
And marks the piercing trumpet's bray, 
So bums he for the desperate fray. 2 

Previous to the assault of the town, the united force of the Cad- The bans are 
meians, Phlegyae, and Phocaeans had marched out to meet their Jj^JJ JjJ* 
invaders, but being defeated in a battle near the heights of Ismenus, 
they were driven back within their walls. Mensetius, the son of Creon, 

1 MifaTrou trrguros (TToocroTihov Xtvrajv, 
Pir Tokv; 'ohz Xiu; T^ob^oyo; Iwora,;' 
'Athg'ia xovis y% <riihi <pa,vi7;', 
" Atctvhoi, trtz^h;, trvyo; oLyyiXos' 
'Kkt^tyva; TtbtTXoKTvros <r' 

Atxav lihetroi ogoxTuvrov. Sept. cont, Theb. 79, 86. 

2 T^US XXTCttTXIOV? XoQoVS 

li'itt, xgotvovs ^aiToy, v<r' uffvr't^o: o% ru 
'S.u.XxnXa.'roi xku^ovtri xubuvi; <po(Zov 
"Ex il ^' ixrl^gov any It' ian'tho; <r'o&i, 
&\iyovf vt' oiargoi; gIquvov Tirvyyivov 
Aayvoa. Tava'iXnvo; h y'zac* aa-xu, 
Ugi<r(Zt<rTov aargcov, vuxros oQdtzXyos, gtgtvew 
ToiotZr ctXvcov ra.7; v1riQX.0y7ra.ii ffuycciS) 
Boa. nag b%0cti; Torctyicci; yu,-)(,*S tg&v, 
"Itto; ^;«X/v(yy u; xetraaiycctveuv y'tvu, 
Oan; (Zoriv axXTiyyo; ogytziva ylvsov. 

JEschyl. Sept. ap. Theb. 384, 394. 



102 



LEGEND OF THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. 



Mensetius having heard from Tiresias, the blind prophet, that should he offer 



SmSf^or himself up as a sacrifice to Ares, victory would declare for Thebes, 
Thebes. went forth from the city, and slew himself before the gates. The 

storming of the town now began. Parthenopseus was killed by a 
Capaneus stone from Periclymenus, and the warlike Capaneus, who had already 
by athunder- mounted the wall by a scaling-ladder, was smitten down lifeless by a 
bolt thunderbolt from Zeus. Terror-struck at this interposition of divine 

power, Adrastus and his Argive bands drew off from the walls, and 
Combat the Thebans, sallying forth in pursuit, a single combat ensued between 
Eteoci&s and tne rival brothers, who were so exasperated by fury that, intent only 
Poiyneices. U p n inflicting mutual death, and regardless of self-defence, they both 

fell lifeless upon the spot : — 

A deadly kindred, they 

All hate-dissevered lay 
In anger's frenzy 'mid the closing strife. 
That hate has ceased, and, true to kindred birth, 
Lies reeking on the sod the blood of life, 

Commingling in the earth. 1 

Amphiaraus, though struggling hard to stem the tide of battle, was 
carried away by the fugitives, and being closely pursued by Pericly- 
Amphiaraus menus, had been pierced by the spear of that warrior, had not Zeus 
b? usly miraculously rescued him, by receiving within the bosom of the 
Zeus. ' opening earth the hero, with his chariot and horses, uninjured. 2 
An incident so memorable was vouched for by a sacred tomb, built on 
the spot, and shown by the Thebans even in historic times. All the 
Adrastus Argive chiefs had perished in the disastrous fight. Adrastus, now 
speed of his 6 bereft of the prophet-warrior, left alone in his flight, and saved solely 
horse. by the matchless speed of his horse Areion, reached Argos, bringing 
with him — 

Saved by his mighty courser's speed, 

Nought but his garb of woe and black-maned steed. 3 

An edict had been issued by Creon refusing burial to the fallen 
Argives, and forbidding the body of Poiyneices to be consigned to the 
Noble action tomb. Antigone, his affectionate sister, undeterred by threats, yet 
of Antigone, ^j^fe ^ gain assistance, was burying the body with her own hands, 
demned when sne was detected by Creon. That tyrant condemned her to be 
tob™ buried alive. His son, to whom she was betrothed, overpowered by 
buried alive, despair, slew himself in the sepulchre of Antigone ; while Creon's 
wife, unable to endure the loss of her son, put an end to her miserable) 

3 'OfAoo-tfogot }ijra xa) vruvevXifyot, 
Aia.rofAa.7s ob <plXats f 
"Eg3i fjtaivof&iva, 
"Ntixsos iv riktvra 
Tllvavrai V i^os. 
'Ex o% yala %aa 
iavoppvrco /nifiixrat' 
Kdgra us' oftatftoi. 

^schyl. Sept. ap. Theb. 933, 940. 
2 Pind. 01. vi. 21 ; Plut. Par. 6. 3 Paus. viii. 25, 5. 



LEGEND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 



103 



existence. And thus sank the dynasty of (Edipus in the gloom of 
horror. 

The disastrous legend of Thebes is not yet closed, for those youthful The Epigoni 
warriors, the Epigoni, or sons of the seven chiefs, aided by auxiliaries *u ie3- eir 
from Corinth, Arcadia, Messene, and Megara, encountered the Thebans 
on the banks of the river Glisas, where the latter were defeated, and 
driven within the shelter of the walls, by Alcmseon, the renowned 
son of Amphiaraus. Incapable any longer of resistance, by the advice 
of Tiresias, the Thebans offered to surrender the town, provided them- Thebes 
selves, wives, and children might retire in safety. The proposals were ^ the ^ 
accepted, and Thersander, the son of Polyneices, was seated upon his Epigoni. 
father's throne. 

THE AEGONAUTIC EXPEDITION. 

This enterprise, one of the most popular in the whole cycle of Jason, the 
Greek mythology, was headed by the gallant and romantic Jason, at Argonauts. 6 
whose invitation fifty of the noblest and bravest Greeks embarked in 
the perilous undertaking. 1 Being commanded by Pelias to bring back 
the golden fleece of the ram which had carried away Phryxus and 
Hella, Jason directed Argos, the son of Phryxus, by the advice of 




Athene, to build the celebrated Argo, into the prow of which was 
inserted a piece of timber from the far-famed speaking oak of s P lendid 
Dodona. The expedition was fitted out with the most brilliant SfSfJ " 6 * 
accessories. They were attended by Idmon, the prophetic son of expedition. 

1 Amongst other renowned names were Heracles, Theseus, Peleus, Telamon, 
Castor and Pollux, Idas and Lynceus ; Meleager, Cepheus, Mensetius, Amphiaraus, 
Laertes, Actor, Autolycus, Anceus, Eupherus, Erginus, Pseas ; Zetes and Calais, the 
winged sons of Boreas ; Periclymenus, Augeas, Cameus, Leitus, Eurytus, Admetus, 
Acastus, and other celebrated chiefs. 



104 LEGEND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 

Apollo, their steersman was Typhys, and Orpheus brought the charms 
of his harp to enliven and cheer the perils of their voyage : — 
Their hawsers now they loose, and on the brine 
To Neptune pour the consecrated wine ; 
Then from his native shore sad Jason turns 
His oft-reverted eye, and silent mourns. 
As in Ortygia, or the Delphic fane, 
Or where Ismenus laves Boeotia's plain, 
Apollo's altar round, the youthful quire, 
The dance according with the sounding lyre, 
The hallowed ground with equal cadence beat, 
And move in measure their alternate feet ; 
Together so Thessalia's princes sweep 
With well-timed oars the silver curling deep : 
While, raising high the Thracian harp, presides 
Melodious Orpheus, and the movement guides. 
Dashed by their oars the foaming billows broke, 
And loud remurmured to each mighty stroke. 
Swift sailed the ship, the sun refulgent beamed, 
And bright as flame their glittering armour gleamed ; 
While to their outstretched oars the heroes bow, 
The parted ocean whitening foams below.* 

After touching at the island of Lemnos, their course lay up the Helles- 
Received by pont. On the southern coast of the Propontis they were kindly enter- 
Cyzicus. tained by Cyzicus, king of the Doliones, whom they were unfortunate 
enough to kill by a fatal mistake occurring during a night attack. As they 
Heracles left were coasting along Mysia, they had the grief to leave behind them 
behind. Heracles, who had gone ashore in search of Hylas, his favourite youth- 
ful companion, who had been carried off by the nymphs of a fountain. 
In their voyage they visited the Bebrycians, whose king, Amycus, 
perished in a boxing-match with the famed Pollux. On reaching 
Argonauts Bithynia, the adventurers had the satisfaction of relieving the blind 
Sna the prophet, Phineus, from the tormenting and foul assaults of the 
prophet, Harpies, by the instrumentality of Zetes and Calais, the winged sons 
Phineus. q £ Boreas. Grateful for this kindness, Phineus forewarned the 
Argonauts of the perils of their voyage, and showed them the means 
of passing between the wild rocks of the Symplegades, which 
opened and shut alternately with rapid and horrible collision. At 
Dangers tms dangerous spot a dove was let loose by Euphemus, which flew 
of the through, barely escaping with the loss of her tail feathers. On this 
Symplegades. s -g na j Q £ success wn jch Phineus had predicted, they rowed so vigor- 
ously as to pass in safety between the closing rocks: even this, 
Narrow perhaps, they would not have effected, had not the mighty arms of 
escape of the Athene kept asunder the closing masses ; and so narrowly did they 
escape, that the ornaments of the Argo's stern were crushed to atoms. 
On wave-worn cliffs, the coast's high margin o'er, 
Boiled the light foam, and whitened all the shore ; 
Round whirled the ship ; the rocks with rapid sway 
Lopped from the dove her steering tail away ; 



1 Fawkes's Apoll. Rhod. i. 525. 



LEGEND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 



105 



Yet still securely through the straits she flew : 
Loud joy inspired the circumspective crew. 
But Tiphys urged the chiefs their oars to ply, 
For the rocks yawned, tremendous to the eye. 
Then terror seized them, when with sudden shock 
The refluent billows forced them on the rock ; 
With chilling fear was every nerve unstrung, 
While o'er their heads impending ruin hung. 
Before, behind, they saw the spacious deep, 
When instant, lo ! a billow, vast and steep, 
Still rises higher, and still wider spreads, 
And hangs a watery mountain o'er their heads. 
The heroes stooped, expecting by its fall 
That mighty billow would o'erwhelm them all ; 
But Tiphys' art relieved the labouring oars : 
On Argo's keel th' impetuous torrent pours, 
Which raised the ship above the rocks so high, 
She seemed sublimely sailing in the sky. 
Euphemus hastening urged the valiant crew 
Their course with all their vigour to pursue. 
Shouting, they plied their oars, but plied in vain, 
For the rough billows beat them back again ; 
And as the heroes unremitting row, 
Their labouring oars were bent into a bow. 
Swift down the mountain billows Argo glides, 
Like a huge cylinder along the tides, 
Entangled with thick, craggy rocks around, 
Her seams all bursting, and her planks unbound. 
In that nice moment the Tritonian maid 
To sacred Argo lent her timely aid ; 
Her left hand raised her from the craggy steep, 
Her right dismissed her gently to the deep : 
Then, like an arrow from th' elastic yew, 
Swift o'er the foaming waves the vessel flew, 
Yet had the clashing rocks, with adverse sway, 
Torn the tall prow's embellishments away. 1 

By virtue of a decree of the gods, the passage now having been 
once effected, remained for ever after safe. On the coast of the Mary- 
andrians they had the misfortune to lose their steersman Typhys. Typhys, the 
After his death they continued to sail on till they reached Mount J2 rsman ' 
Caucasus, where they had the horror of seeing Prometheus still nailed 
to the rock, and of hearing his groans whilst the vulture was preying 
upon his liver. The Argonauts now arrived at Colchis, where Arrival at 
they demanded from ^Eetes the golden fleece. The king refused, JemS o? d 
unless Jason could harness two fierce bulls with brazen feet, and with the golden 
fire blazing from their nostrils; and with these untameable animals eece * 
could plough a large field, and sow it with the teeth of a dragon. By 
the magical aid of Medea, the king's daughter, who had fallen deeply 
in love with Jason, he completely accomplished the enterprise. Not- 
withstanding iEetes refused to surrender the golden fleece, and even 
basely planned the murder of the Argonauts, during the night of a 
festival banquet, and contemplated setting fire to their ship. At this 

1 Fawkes's Apoll. Rhod. 



106 



LEGEND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 



Medea lulls 
to sleep the 
dragon. 



Slays her 

brother 

Absyrtus. 



Hurricane 
near the isle 
of Thera. 



Repulsed 
by Talos, 
the brazen 
man of 
Hephaistos. 



Return to 
the port of 
Iolcos. 



Cruelty of 
Peiias. 



Stratagem 
and magical 
powers of 
Medea. 



The 

Argonauts 



themselves 
of the city. 



perilous juncture Medea, by a magical potion, lulled to sleep the 
dragon who guarded the golden fleece, and placing that precious prize 
on board the Argo, set sail in company with Jason, carrying with her 
in her flight her younger brother Absyrtus. The rapid pursuit of 
iEetes and his forces would have left the Argonauts no chance of 
escape, but for the stratagem of Medea. The sorceress, after slaugh- 
tering her brother Absyrtus, cut his body in pieces, and scattered his 
limbs about on the sea, and while the Colchian king was collecting 
the scattered fragments of his son's body the Argonauts succeeded in 
escaping. This horrible murder so provoked the righteous indignation 
of Zeus, that the Argonauts were doomed to protracted perils and 
hardships, in which they were obliged to carry the Argo on their 
shoulders overland by a wearisome journey. They at length reached 
the waters of the Mediterranean. Near the isle of Thera the romantic 
voyagers were overtaken by a tremendous hurricane, from the perils of 
which they were only saved by the supernatural aid of Apollo. The 
god, darting from his golden bow an arrow which pierced the waters 
like a ray of light, caused a new island to spring up on their path, 
into which they ran as into a port of refuge. 

. Their perils, however, were not yet over. The Argonauts had 
attempted a landing on the coast of Crete, but were repulsed by Talos, 
a man of brass, the workmanship of Hephaistos, and the guardian of 
the island. As the vessel advanced, the mighty sentinel hurled against 
the Argonauts vast fragments of rock, by which, but for the successful 
stratagem of Medea, by which Talos perished, they must have been 
destroyed. After touching at iEgina and coasting along Eubcea, they 
at length reached Iolcos, on the Pagassean gulf, the place whence 
they had set out on their perilous enterprise. Meanwhile, fully con- 
vinced, from the protracted voyage of the Argo, that Jason and all on 
board had perished, the tyrant Peiias put to death Jason's father, 
mother, and infant son. The actual return of that prince was the 
signal for the infliction of retributive justice upon the murderous and 
oppressive Peiias. This, however, could only be effected by a deep- 
laid stratagem, and this Medea readily devised. Feigning herself a 
fugitive from the cruelty of Jason, she succeeded in gaining access to 
the daughters of Peiias. In their presence she displayed her magical 
powers, by taking a ram of great age, which, after cutting up and 
boiling in a cauldron with herbs, she produced again in the guise of a 
young and active lamb. In the firm belief that a similar process would 
be attended with the like result in the case of their aged father, they 
with their own hands cut him up, cast his limbs into the cauldron, 
and awaited the moment when Medea should restore him to renovated 
youth. Medea now pretended that it was necessary to invoke the 
moon, and as though for that purpose ascended to the top of the 
palace, where making a signal, Jason and the Argonauts rushed in 
and possessed themselves of the city. As to the ship Argo, which 
had borne the prime of the Grecian heroes on their glorious enterprise, 



LEGEND OF THE AKGONAUTS. 



107 



after passing through so many perils, she was consecrated to Poseidon, 
at the isthmus of Corinth. 1 The recording poet thus winds up the 
adventures of the daring Argonauts : — 

Hail, happy race of heroes, and repay 

With tributary praise my tuneful lay ! 

With pleasure still may distant times rehearse 

And added years on years exalt my verse ! 

For here I fix the period of your woes, 

And with your glorious toils my numbers close. 

Fawkes's Argonautics. 

We cannot more appropriately close the myth of the Argonautic 
expedition, than by presenting to the reader a prominent reflection of 
Mr. Grote, an author whom we have just quoted, and to whom Grecian 
history is so much indebted. " Not only," does he observe, 2 " are Mr. Grote's 
we unable to assign the date, or identify the crew, or decipher the on^the "myth 
log-book of the Argo, but we have no means of settling even the pre- of Argo. 
liminary question, whether the voyage be matter-of-fact badly 
reported, or legend from the beginning. The widely-distant spots in 
which the monuments of the voyage were shown, no less than the 
incidents of the voyage itself, suggest no other parentage than epical 
fancy. The supernatural and the romantic not only constitute an 
inseparable portion of the narrative, but even embrace all the promi- 
nent and characteristic features ; if they do not comprise the whole, 
and if there be intermingled along with them any sprinkling of histo- 
rical or geographical fact, — a question to us undeterminable, — there is 
at least no solvent by which it can be disengaged, and no test by 
which it can be recognised. Wherever the Grecian mariner sailed he 
carried his religious and patriotic mythes along with him. His fancy 
and his faith were alike full of the long wanderings of Jason, Odys- 
seus, Perseus, Herakles, Dionysus, Triptolemus, or Io. It was pleas- 
ing to him in success, and consoling to him in difficulty, to believe 
that their journeys had brought them over the ground which he was 
himself traversing. There was no tale amidst the wide range of the 
Grecian epic more calculated to be popular with the seaman than the 
history of the primaeval ship Argo and her distinguished crew, com- 
prising heroes from all parts of Greece, and especially the Tyndarids 
Castor and Pollux, the heavenly protectors invoked during storm and 
peril. He localised the legend anew wherever he went, often with 
some fresh circumstance suggested either by his own adventures or by 
the scene before him. He took a sort of religious possession of the 
spot, connecting it by a bond of faith with his native land, and erect- 
ing in it a temple or an altar with appropriate commemorative solemni- 
ties. The Jasonium thus established, and, indeed, every visible 
object called after the name of the hero, not only served to keep alive 
the legend of the Argo in the minds of future comers or inhabitants, 

1 Diodorus says that she was translated to the heavens by Athene, and became a 
constellation. Diod. iv. 53. 

2 Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 333. 



108 



LEGEND OF THESEUS. 



but was accepted as an obvious and satisfactory proof that this mar- 
vellous vessel had actually touched there in her voyage." 

The germ of the legend of the Argonauts and the golden fleece has 
Ariamaspi a ^ s0 been considered 1 to be found in the fable of the Arimaspi and 
and Griffins. Griffins. The former, as Herodotus was told, 2 were a Scythian 
people, who waged a continual war with the griffins who collected 
the gold of the country. The writer to whom we have alluded, 
imagines that these were the symbols of two contending parties. The 
griffin was especially a fabulous animal of the Persians. 




THE LEGEND OF THESEUS. 

Attic The Athenians, with their usual fondness for national aggrandise- 

ancestry. men t } ran up the genealogy of their race, till it became identified with 
the soil. By this process they organized a pure, independent, and most 
ancient lineage, highly flattering to their pride as a people. 

Erechtheus, the Autochthon, or their " Own-Earth-Sprung," was the 
great ancestor of the Attic race, which in the earliest Greek poet is 
styled the " people of the magnanimous Erechtheus," whom 
Jove's daughter nourished, and the fertile soil 
Produced 3 

This Homeric authority was a famous addition to their heraldic 
escutcheon. To Erechtheus succeeded Cecrops the Second, and to the 
latter, Pandion the Second. Of the four sons of Pandion, jEgeus, 
Lycus, Pallas, and Nisus, the former obtained considerable distinction 
as the father of the celebrated Theseus ; though other legends ascribe 
Myth of his parentage to Poseidon. JEthra, the daughter of Pitheus, king of 
Theseus. Trcezen, the mother of Theseus, had been directed by iEgeus, in case 
her offspring should be a son, to send with him, on his reaching 

1 Bitter, Vorher. 481. 2 Herod, iv. 27. 

3 Ari/u.ov 'E|6^^5«5 fayuX^ropos ov wor A&mn 
Bp'i^/s ) Aio; Svyarrip, tiki 3e l^ttbupos "Apoupoi. 

Horn. II. ii. 547, 548. 



LEGEND OF THESEUS. 



109 



maturity, the secret tokens which he had communicated to that 
princess previous to his departure. Theseus, having grown up 
athletic in body and ardent in mind, now repaired to his father at 
Athens. Inflamed by the exploits of Heracles, who subsequently ^1*°^ 
presented to him in marriage Hippolyte, the queen of the Amazons, 
whom he had vanquished, he resolved to sweep away those bands of 
robbers that everywhere infested the country. Periphetes, the Epi- 




daurian club-bearer, was the first who fell beneath his prowess, while 
his next victory was over the renowned Sinnus, the pine-bender, an 
atrocious wretch who used to fasten unhappy travellers between the 
heads of two pines, which, after being drawn together and suddenly 
released, by their springing back tore to pieces the victims of his 
cruelty. He also threw down a precipice Sciron, the Megarean 
robber, and put to death Procrustes, who had been accustomed to 
force the body of strangers to fit the size of his own bed. His next 
exploit was to kill the Minotaur of Crete, a monster half-man and Jjgjjjj 
half-bull, which he effected by the aid of Ariadne, with whom he set in 
out for Athens. Previous to the Cretan expedition, Theseus had 
agreed with his father iEgeus that, should it be successful, the black 
sail with which the vessel set out should be exchanged for a white 
one. On approaching Attica, both Theseus and the pilot were so 
overjoyed, that they forgot to hoist the appointed signal of safety, 
and iEgeus, in consequence, overwhelmed with despair, cast himself 
down a precipice, and was dashed to pieces. 

On ascending the throne, Theseus is said to have united into one, Political 
the twelve districts into which Cecrops had divided Attica ; their ^ h T ^ e s ^J nU 
separate councils were abolished, and blended into the Prytaneum ; 
the currency was marked with the impression of an ox; and the 
Isthmian Games, in honour of Neptune, restored. 

He is further said, not only to have enlarged the capital, but to 



110 



LEGEND OF THESEUS. 



have added to his country the territory of Megara. Notwithstanding 
Emulates these statesmanlike occupations, the romantic military fame of Hera- 
acts^f 010 c ^ s continued to stimulate the same ardent feelings in Theseus. He 
Heracles. took a prominent part in the conflict of the Lapithse with the Centaurs, 
joined in the celebrated chase of the wild boar of Calydon, and van- 
quished the Amazons. His enterprises, however, were not always of 




Carries off an honourable nature. Accompanied by Pirithous, he seized on Helen, 
Helen. then, a young girl, as she was performing a dance in the temple of 

Artemis, and after escaping their pursuers, who followed them as far 

as Tegea, they agreed to determine by lot to whom she should belong ; 

and thus it was that Theseus became possessed of her. His next 

enterprise was in company with Pirithous, in order to gain for that 

prince Persephone, the daughter of Aidoneus, king of the Molossians. 

Pirithous, however, perished miserably, being thrown to Cerberus, 

the king's dog, while Theseus was cast into prison, from which he did 
Theseus not escape till rescued by Heracles. On the return of Theseus, he 
returns to his found his kingdom torn by domestic and public factions ; Castor and 
m om. PqH^ the brothers of Helen, indignant at the treachery of Theseus, 

were ravaging Attica, and he was compelled to take refuge in Scyros, 

at the court of king Lycomedes. 

After the death of Theseus, the oracle of Apollo ordered that his 

bones should be taken up, and borne to Athens, winch was afterwards 
Tomb of effected by Cimon, the son of Miltiades. Over the tomb of Theseus 
Theseus. was erected a temple, which was richly decorated, and which became 

the asylum of the wretched. 

It was on the occasion of the marriage of Pirithous with Hippo- 

dameia, that the fierce conflict between the Centaurs and the Lapitha? 

took place. 1 In the midst of the feast, one of them had endeavoured 
Centaurs and to carry off the bride of Pirithous, which was the cause of the catas- 
Lapithae. trophe. In the fable of the Centaurs, we see much information pre- 

1 Horn. xi. 630. 



LEGEND OF THESEUS. 



Ill 



served to us by philology, quite in keeping with the received idea 
of that strange race. They are described as living a rude and savage 
life, sometimes carrying off the women of their neighbours ; as covered 
with hair, and ranging over their mountains like animals. Cheiron, 
one of their number, was skilled in medicine and music, and taught 
iEsculapius, whose sons, Podalirius and Machaon, exercised their art 
at the siege of Troy. The scene of the contest with the Centaurs is 
placed in Thessaly, and the spot in which they took refuge was on 
Mount Pindus, two places we have already shown to be connected with 
an Indian emigration. Homer calls them " Pheres," a term misunder- 
stood by the Greeks, but which is preserved, with slight alteration, 
in the ancient dialect just noticed, signifying " heroes or warriors." 1 




Homeric 
name of the 
Centaurs. 



The Centaurs appear, then, from their local position in Thessaly, 
and afterwards on Mount Pindus, from their knowledge of the arts, 
from the language in which their leader's name, Cheiron, is preserved, 
as well as that of their general body, " Centaurs," just noticed, to have 
been a part of the Indian emigration, before treated of, who made 
several attempts forcibly to get themselves wives from the original 
inhabitants. It is not a little singular that Greek, Indian, and Persian Monstrous 
mythology should record monstrous agencies as the teachers of man- ^f^ers'of 9 
kind in the arts and sciences. In the first, we have seen Cheiron the arts, 
assuming the musical and medical professions; in the second, we 
observe Seesha, the great serpent, the " first teacher of astronomical 
science," and, strange to say, like Atlas, " bearing the whole world 
upon his head ; " 2 in the third, the Simorg, a species of griffin bird, 
is a professor of the medical art and a guardian and instructor of 
youth. 3 

1 The Greeks considered the term <p^sj equivalent to 6^ts ; but the more 
ancient form is at once seen in the Sansc. <f^"^, " vera," a warrior. 

2 Vish. Puran. ii. 5. 

3 Vide Shah Nam. sub. V. " Rudabeh ;" also, " Riistam." The Simorg attends 
as a physician on the fair Rudabeh, and like the Centaur and Achilles, trains and 



112 



LEGEND OF THESEUS. 



As to the amount of history and of legend contained in the tale of 
Grote's Theseus, Grote has admirably observed, 1 " Thucydides delineates the 
Theseul 0n character of Theseus as a man who combined sagacity with political 
power, and who conferred upon his country the inestimable benefit of 
uniting all the separate and self-governing demes of Attica into one 
common political society. From the well-earned reverence attached 
to the assertion of Thucydides, it has been customary to reason upon 
this assertion as if it were historically authentic, and to treat the 
romantic attributes which we find in Plutarch and Diodorus as if they 
were fiction superinduced upon this basis of fact. Such a view of the 
case is, in my judgment, erroneous. The athletic and amorous knight- 
errant is the old version of the character; the profound and long- 
sighted politician is a subsequent correction, produced, indeed, by men 
of superior mind, but destitute of historical warranty, and arising out 
of their desire to find reasons of their own for concurring in the vene- 
ration which the general public paid more easily and heartily to their 
national hero. Theseus, in the Iliad and Odyssey, fights with the 
Lapithse against the Centaurs; Theseus, in the Hesiodic poems, is 
misguided by his passion for the beautiful JEgle, daughter of Pano- 
peus ; and the Theseus described in Plutarch's biography is in great 
part a continuation and expansion of these same, or similar, attributes, 
mingled with many local legends, explaining, like the Fasti of Ovid, 
or the lost Aitia of Kallimachus, the original genesis of prevalent 
religious and social customs. Plutarch has, doubtless, greatly softened 
down and modified the adventures which he found in the Attic logo- 
graphers, as well as in the poetical epics called Theseis ; for in his 
preface to the life of Theseus, after having emphatically declared that 
he is about to transcend the boundary both of the known and the 
knowable, but that the temptation of comparing the founder of Athens 
with the founder of Rome is irresistible, he concludes with the follow- 
ing remarkable words : £ I pray that this fabulous matter may be so 
far obedient to my endeavours as to revive, when purified by reason, 



brings up the heroic Zal, the father of Rustam, on Mount Alberz. The infant, ex- 
posed to destruction by its parents, was by a divine voice placed under the especial 
charge and teaching of the Simorg : — 

\J*J3 c^A'J c>Vr LT^J 

Shah Narneh. | $ K 

Watch o'er this boy of warlike mould, 
From whom shall spring a hero bold, 
Whose aspect warrior chiefs shall fly, 
As from the lion raging nigh. 
1 Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 283. 



LEGEND OF TROY. 



113 



the aspect of history ; in those cases where it haughtily scorns plau- Theseus, 
sibility, and will admit no alliance with what is probable, I shall beg 
for indulgent hearers, willing to receive antique narrative in a mild 
spirit.' We see here that Plutarch sat down, not to recount the old 
fables as he found them, but to purify them by reason, and to impart 
to them the aspect of history. We have to thank him for having 
retained, after this purification, so much of what is romantic and mar- 
vellous still. It was the tendency of the enlightened men of Athens, 
from the days of Solon downwards, to refine and politicise the cha- 
racter of Theseus; even Peisistratus expunged from one of the 
Hesiodic poems the line which described the violent passion of the 
hero for the fair iEgle, and the tragic poets found it more congenial to 
the feelings of their audience to exhibit him as a dignified and liberal 
sovereign, rather than as an adventurous, single-handed fighter." 



THE LEGEND OF TROY. 

As in the opinion of the Greek traditionists the Argonautic expe- Insufficient 
dition preceded that of Troy by about one generation, we cannot do baSftfu* 
better than follow this imaginary chronological arrangement. This legend of 
celebrated legend, which has assumed such dignity and importance lroy * 
through the medium of Greek nationality and poetry, gained a quasi- 
historical character from its notice by the great Thucydides. Its 
evidences, however, rest on< a basis not more solid than several of 
those legends which we have already contemplated. The extraordinary 
extent of the Homeric, Cyclic, and Tragic narratives of the Trojan ex- 
pedition, will permit a bare outline only of its chief features. 

From Dardanus, the son of Zeus, first of the Trojan line of kings, Dynasty of 
sprang his son Ericthonius, whose wealth was vast, and on whose rich JJ n J > r0, ' an 
pastures fed a splendid stock of three 
thousand mares. His son Tros, the 
eponym of the Trojans, had three 




sons — Ganymede, a beautiful youth, 
whom the eagle of Zeus transported 
to Olympus to be the celestial cup- 
bearer, and Ilus and Assaracus. From 
the line of Ilus descended Laomedon, Priam, and Hector ; from Assara- Sons and 
cus, Capys, Anchises, and iEneas. The sons and daughters of Priam, f priam. 
by his wife Hecabe, were numerous. Of the former the most noted were 
Hector, Paris, De'iphobus, Troilus, Helenus, and Polydorus ; among the 
latter were Cassandra, Crevisa, Laodice, and Polyxena. Notwithstanding 
his parents had exposed Paris, when born, on the heights of Mount Ida, Paris, a 
in consequence of a dream of Hecabe, portending destruction from p^JJJj ^ 
Paris, he was preserved by the unwelcome kindness of the gods, the gods. 
He now grew up amongst the flocks and herds, active and graceful, 
the exquisite symmetry of his person still further enhanced by 
flowing tresses of beautiful hair. As he was the especial favourite of 

Th. G.l I 



« 



114 



LEGEND OF TROY. 



Paris carries 
off Helena. 



Greek 
confederate 
force at 
Aulis. 



Set sail from 
Aulis. 



Sacrifice of 
Iphigeneia. 



Allies of 
Troy. 



Prowess of 
AchJles. 



Quarrel 
between 
Achilles and 
Agamemnon. 



Aphrodite, and had decided the claim of beauty in her favour, in pre- 
ference to Athene and Here, that goddess had promised him the pos- 
session of Helena, the loveliest of women, the wife of Menelaus the 
Spartan. Notwithstanding the hospitable reception of Paris by Mene- 
laus, the Trojan prince basely seduced the affections of Helena, with 
whom he set sail for Troy, carrying with him a large sum of money, 
the property of Menelaus. That prince, whose absence at Crete had 
hitherto prevented his receiving information of this act of treachery, 
now hastily returned, and succeeded in raising a formidable league of 
the whole Grecian power against Troy, headed by his brother Aga- 
memn5n, king of the wealthy Mycenae. It was at Aulis, in Bceotia, 
that the confederate force assembled, amounting to 1,186 ships of 
war, and more than 100,000 men, who seem to have been draughted 
from the most opposite points of Hellas, of whom a complete catalogue 
is presented by Homer. Among these heroic chiefs, Ajax, Diomedes, 
and the politic Nestor occupied a high position ; while the most dis- 
tinguished valour and sagacity were represented respectively by Achilles 
and Odysseus. The formidable host of Agamemnon had set sail from 
Aulis, on the coast of Bceotia ; but after reaching the coast of Mysia, 
their fleet was dispersed by a furious storm, and driven back to Greece, 
where it again rendezvoused in the same harbour where it had first 
assembled. Here the anger of the goddess Artemis detained the fleet 
by contrary winds, and Agamemnon, the chief who had excited her 
wrath, could only appease the goddess by the sacrifice of his daughter 
Iphigeneia. The armament then set sail with a fair wind, and 
anchored off Tenedos, whence Odysseus and Menelaus were sent to 
Troy to demand the surrender of Helena and the plundered wealth of 
the Spartan chief. The Trojans, meanwhile, were not inactive. They 
had collected a large body of allies from Thrace and Asia Minor, but 
their attempts to oppose the landing of the Greeks were entirely vain ; 
they were routed, and Cycnus, son of Poseidon, one of their bravest 
warriors, was slain by Achilles. That heroic chief, after driving the 
Trojans within their walls, stormed twelve towns on the sea-coast, 
and carried off an immense booty, capturing Troilus, the son of 
Priam, and very nearly surprising iEneas, whose cattle he drove off. 
Unfortunately for the Greeks, a violent quarrel arose between their 
great champion and Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief. The 
wealthy " king of men," as Homer styles him, had torn from Achilles 
his prize, the fair Briseis, and had acted in a manner so tyrannical as 
to excite the indignation of the renowned leader of the Myrmidons, 
who, but for the soothing advice of Athene, would have rushed upon 
Agamemnon sword in hand, and avenged his wrongs, though that chief 
was then surrounded by a formidable band : — 

Achilles heard, with grief and rage opprest, 
His heart swelled high, and laboured in his breast. 
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled, 
Now fired by wrath, and. now by n'ason cooled : 



LEGEND OF TEOY. 



115 



That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, 
Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord ; 
This whispers soft his vengeance to control, 
And calm the rising tempest of his soul. 

Pope's Homer. 

Influenced by the prudent advice of Athene, though Achilles restrained Bold 
his sword, he gave unbounded liberty to his tongue, and after de- Jjg^ 
nouncing the cowardice and tyrannical government of Agamemnon, of Achilles, 
swore by a tremendous oath that he would never more assist the Greek 
forces against Troy : — 

" Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, 
Which never more shall leaves nor blossoms bear, 
Which severed from the trunk, as I from thee, 
On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; 
This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to prove 
An ensign of the delegates of Jove, 
From whom the power of laws and justice springs 
(Tremendous oath ! inviolate to kings) — 
By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again 
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain ; 
When flushed with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 
The purpled shores with mountains of the dead, 
Then shalt thou mourn the affront thy madness gave, 
Forced to deplore when impotent to save ; 
Then rage in bitterness of soul to know 
This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe." 
He spoke, and furious hurled against the ground 
His sceptre, starred with golden studs around. 

Pope's Homer. 

The Greeks, now deprived of their bravest champion by the im- The Greeks 
politic and rash conduct of Agamemnon, continually suffered in their ™ n r gted ally 
engagements with the Trojans, notwithstanding the valour of Ajax, 
Diomedes, and Odysseus, who each performed many brilliant achieve- 
ments. Still the tide of success continued to run strongly against the 
confederate Greeks. Hector, the great bulwark of the Trojan host, Exploits of 
daily signalized his prowess on their best and bravest, who were Hector, 
defeated and driven back to their ships, to which the victorious Trojan 
hero set fire with his own hand. The illustrious poet of Greece has 
drawn a brilliant picture both of the personal appearance of Hector and 
of his daring achievements : — 

Full in the blazing van great Hector shined, 
Like Mars commissioned to confound mankind ; 
Before him flaming, his enormous shield, 
Like the broad sun illumined all the field : 
His nodding helm emits a streamy ray, 
His piercing eyes through all the battle stray, 
And while beneath his targe he flashed along, 
Shot terrors round that withered e'en the strong ! 

Pope's Homer. 

Fiercely pressed by the Trojans, the Greeks made a last and desperate 
stand at their ships, where, headed by the gigantic Ajax, the combat 

i 2 



116 



LEGEND OF TROY. 



thickened, and the close encounter raged with the rush and fury of a 
whirlwind : — 

No room to poise the lance nor bend the bow, 
But hand to hand, and man to man, they grow ; 
Wounded they wound, and seek each other's hearts 
With falchions, axes, swords, and shortened darts : 
The falchions ring, shields rattle, axes sound, 
Swords flash in air or glitter on the ground ; 
With streaming blood the slippery shores are dyed, 
And slaughtered heroes swell the dreadful tide ; 
Still raging Hector with his ample hand 
Grasps the high stern, and gives this loud command : 
" Haste ! bring the flames ! the toil of ten long years 
Is finished ! and the day desired appears ; 
This happy day with acclamations greet, 
Bright with destruction of yon hostile fleet." 

Pope's Homer. 

Patrocius Patroclus now entreated Achilles to permit him to advance to the 
Greeks h and ass i stance of the Greeks, clothed in the armour of his friend, and 
is slain by heading his troops. The Trojans, at the sight of Patroclus in the 
Hector. armour of Achilles, imagining him to be that hero, were in great con- 
sternation, and even Hector fled. Patroclus, however, pursuing the foe 
to the walls of Troy, was disarmed by Apollo, wounded by Euphorbus, 
and finally slain by Hector. 




Fierce 
struggle at 
the ships. 



Fight for the It was on this occasion that a fierce struggle took place between 
Patroclus H ector an d the Greeks over the dead body of Patroclus, which they 

at last succeeded in rescuing from the Trojans and in conveying in 

safety to Achilles. 

Achilles, now forgetting his anger in his deep grief for the loss of 

his friend, again advanced against the Trojans, after being provided 

with fresh armour by Vulcan. The Trojans, unable to endure his 



LEGEND OF TROY. 



117 



fierce assault, were driven within their walls with immense slaughter. 
Hector alone, chained down by fate, awaited his approach on the open 
plain ; but seized with a sudden panic on the approach of the mighty Approach of 
Achilles, took flight, chased by the Greek thrice round the walls of Achilles - 
Troy. At length, deceived by the fictitious appearance of Deiphobus, 
which Athene had sent to lure him to his ruin, Hector stood firm, Hector 
calmly awaiting the approach of his terrible foe. Unhappily, however, deceived by 
he soon found that his confidence in the assistance of Deiphobus was Delphobuif 
misplaced, and he nobly prepared himself to submit to the decrees of 
fate:— 

All desolate he stands, then, with a sigh, 

" 'Tis so, heaven wills it, and my hour is nigh ! 

I deemed Deiphobus had heard my call, 

But he secure lies guarded in the wall. 

A god deceived me ; Pallas, 'twas thy deed ! 

Death and black Fate approach ! 'tis I must bleed. 

No refuge now, no succour from above, 

Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove, 

Propitious once and kind : then welcome fate ! 

'Tis true I perish, yet I perish great : 

Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire ; 

Let future ages hear it, and admire !" 

Fierce at the word his mighty sword he drew, 

And all collected on Achilles flew. 

So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air, 

Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare. 

Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares ; 

Before his breast the flaming shield he bears, 

Eefulgent orb ! above his fourfold cone 

The gilded horsehair sparkled in the sun, 

Nodding at every step ; Vulcanian frame ! 

And as he moved his figure seemed on flame. 

Pope's Homer. 

Notwithstanding the intrepidity of Hector in this last closing scene Slain by 
of his life, he was doomed to fall before the conquering arms of ^dragged 
Achilles ; and the victor sullied his triumph by dragging thrice round round the 
the walls of Troy the dead body of his enemy, attached to his tri- x r a y S of 
umphal car. The Trojans, however, did not as yet despair. Their 
courage was revived by the arrival of the fierce Amazon, Penthe- 
sileia, and next of the swarthy Memnon, who brought with him a 
powerful band of his dark Ethiopians. Both these champions, not- 
withstanding their desperate valour and consummate skill in arms, fell 
before the conquering weapons of Achilles. His own fate, however, Achilles 
was near at hand. An arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed by pJJJJ # by 
the unerring Apollo, pierced the hero near the Scsean gate, as he was — * 
chasing the Trojans within their walls. The glorious armour which 
Hephaistos had wrought for Achilles was now, by the command of 
Thetis, offered as a prize to the bravest warrior of the Grecian army. 
It was adjudged to Odysseus, in consequence of which Ajax, bereft of Ajax slays 
his senses by grief, in a fit of madness slew himself. himself. 

Unable now to capture the city of Troy by open force, the Greeks 



118 



LEGEND OF TROY. 



stratagem to had recourse to stratagem. They constructed a capacious wooden 
take the city, j^g^ j n w bi c } 1 they concealed the bravest of their warriors, while the 
Greek fleet sailed away, pretending to have abandoned the siege. As 
many of the Trojans, influenced both by gratitude at their deliverance 
and by the advice of the traitor Sinon, wished to dedicate the mon- 
strous fabric to the gods, they were at length induced to drag within 
their walls the deadly instrument of their ruin. 
Troy The destruction of Troy was now irrevocably decreed. During the 

andsacked. festivities of a night of fatal rejoicing, the Grecian chiefs descended 
from their hiding-place within the horse, and opening the gates of the 
lost city to their comrades, who had now returned from their feigned 
departure, the associate bands joined in a final and tremendous attack 
upon the unguarded town, which was sacked and fired, the male inha- 
bitants slaughtered, and the females earned into captivity. 
Return of The return of the victorious chiefs from Troy formed a copious fund 
^ c f ^ n for the Greek epic, of which the only complete specimen remaining is 

the Odyssey, or the return and wanderings of Odysseus. 
Mr. Grote's ^ n tne historical basis of this legend Mr. Grote has observed, 1 " Of 
th^historicai su °k events ^ e genuine Trojan war of the old epic was for the most part 
baJis of the composed. Though literally believed, reverentially cherished, and num- 
war of Troy, fo^ed among the gigantic phenomena of the past by the Grecian public, 
it is, in the eyes of modern inquiry, essentially a legend, and nothing more. 
If we are asked whether it be not a legend, embodying portions of his- 
torical matter, and raised upon a basis of truth ; whether there may not 
really have occurred at the foot of the hill of Ilium a war purely human 
and political, without gods, without heroes, without Helena, without 
Amazons, without Ethiopians under the beautiful son of Eos, without 
the wooden horse, without the characteristic and impressive features of 
the old epical war — like the mutilated trunk of Deiphobus in the 
under-world ; if we are asked whether there was not really some such 
historical Trojan war as this, our answer must be, that as the pos- 
sibility of it cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be 
affirmed. We possess nothing but the ancient epic itself, without any 
independent evidence : had it been an age of records, indeed, the 
Homeric epic, in its exquisite and unsuspecting simplicity, would 
probably never have come into existence. Whoever, therefore, ventures 
to dissect Homer, Arktinus, and Lesches, and to pick out certain 
portions as matter-of-fact, while he sets aside the rest as fiction, must 
" do so in full reliance on his own powers of historical divination, 
without any means either of proving or verifying his conclusions." 



Perhaps, within the whole compass of mythology, there is no 
system altogether more plausible than the Grecian. Its coherence 
betrays art in arrangement, but weakness in the main incidents. A 
basis, however, it undoubtedly possessed, which was neither inventive 
1 Hist. Greece, vol. i. p. 134. 



INDIAN ORIGIN OF GREEK LEGEND. 



119 



nor fictitious. What that basis was, is certainly not to be eliminated 
from either poet, or logographer, or historian, independent of extra- 
neous aids. Such aids are presented to the inquiring mind in those 
two most durable records of a nation — its language and its monu- 
ments. These adjuncts, though of foreign origin, are fortunately avail- 
able for the elucidation of Greek mythology. 

There is nothing more calculated to blunt the keenness of investi- 
gation than any theoretic axiom which lays down some general position 
to meet general difficulties. Here acquiescence must be the rule, and 
research the exception. Nothing can be more tempting to indolence. 
To assume individual or national feeling as the exponent of fact, and 
fact, too, possibly foreign to that individual or nation, must be a 
perilous mode of rescuing from error, or re-establishing truth. 

The theory of " The Myth," as laid down by some distinguished Theory of 
German writers, and adopted by certain authors in this country, is, at " the M>th ' 
the best, only capable of sound application where a people has had no 
connection with another nation by commerce, war, religion, or other inter- 
communication — a category, in fact, which history scarcely supposes. 
" There is," says this theory, " in the human mind a tendency, when 
excited by any particular feeling, to body forth that feeling in some 
imaginary fact, scene, or circumstance, in the contemplation of which 
it may find relief." Again, we are told that " whatever thought arose 
in a man's mind, whatever sensation varied his consciousness, could be 
expressed by him only in one way, namely, by dragging forth the con- 
crete images, fictions, or inventions, that he felt arise contemporaneously 
with it." 

In a volume elucidatory of the true sources of Greek legend, I shall 
demonstrate that the great mythi of antiquity are not feelings bodied 
forth to relieve the mind, still less are they concrete images, fictions, and 
inventions. Wherever an important my thus has existed, an important 
fact has been its basis. Great principles do not arise from idealities : 
a national myth cannot be generated without a national cause, and a 
national cause implies agency, not invention. After facts, obscuration 
may arise, the conditions of which latter are easier as the facilities of 
record are scarcer. Imitation then steps in, and supplies a garbled or 
an exaggerated copy of the original : but a theory deduced from the 
evidences of feeling, is as mythical as a myth itself. 

For the immense mass of legendary matter that swells the early Modes of 
chronicles of Hellas, there are usually assigned three methods of inter- l^terpreta- 
pretation: 1st, The Literal; 2ndly, The Rationalistic, or Allegorical ; tion - 
3rdly, The Mythical, which, as we have observed, considers the whole 
as purely fictitious matter, secreted from the Greek mind itself, with 
or without external stimulus. To these systems I shall add a fourth, 
The Pictorial, or Imitative, of which I shall, in the treatise referred to, 
advance abundant evidences; and these evidences will still farther 
have the effect of restoring some of the earliest outlines of Grecian 
history, now nearly obliterated. 



120 



INDIAN ORIGIN OF GREEK LEGEND. 



The industry and profound classical knowledge of European scholars 
have thoroughly classified and exhausted whatever information is to be 
acquired, or inference to be drawn, from Hellenic literature alone ; and 
he who would seek for new light must have recourse to other sources. 
Such a source is presented in the Sanscrit : its literature more vene- 
rable than the Greek ; its language as polished, and more euphonic. 
Other aids will be found in geographical, religious, or historical con- 
siderations. 

basisof Ve ^ we con template the great fictions of European poets, we shall 
European find them reposing upon an imitative basis. A Milton has freely bor- 
poems. rowed from Tasso, Dante, Virgil, Homer, and the inspired writings ; 

the Mantuan bard has drawn largely from the great poet of Greece, 
and from Hesiod, who, in his turn, has copied the traditions of the 
Indian cosmogony. But one main reason why history and religion, in 
the hands of the Greeks, degenerated into mythology, was that, coming 
after a race whose language was somewhat similar to their own, they 
were led, by identity of sound, to ( consider as purely Hellenic, many 
customs, religious rites, and achievements not their own ; and thus to 
misunderstand the early history of their own country. On this basis, 
they subsequently, on the same imitative system as that of Milton, but 
without the accuracy of his models, constructed their doctrinal and 
heroic poems. But whatever were their 7ro<>?jLiara, or inventions, they 
rested upon a previous foundation, and were not independent fictions : 
the outline was by a foreign limner, the colouring was that of a native 
artist. 

its appiica- On this principle, then, the student, with the original of the Hellenic 
mythology? 15 Pointing before him, will be prepared to receive cumulative demon- 
stration of deviation from, or adherence to, truth. The errors of 
Bryant, Creuzer, and others, who have trusted to a discursive philo- 
logy as the basis of rationalistic explanation, should warn the inquirer 
after truth to call in aids strictly and solely in unison with that object. 

Interspersed with the doctrinal and heroic mythologies of Greece, I 
have furnished, in the present volume, copious illustrations of the 
Indian source of her doctrinal principles, her similar vein of thought, 
and her geographical nomenclature. I have referred to her colonization 
by immigrants from two distinct points, and I have given such evi- 
dences of the presence and action of one of these colonies (the 
Pelasgi), as, I trust, will prove convincing. 

The limits of the present work forbid my entering into a more 
detailed account of the oriental sources of Greek mythology, to which, 
as I have already intimated, it is my intention to devote a separate 
treatise, in which I shall demonstrate the early sacerdotal and political 
institutes of Hellas and their occidental progression. 



CHAPTER VI. 



SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 

If we are to consider the sea as one of the mightiest agents in the 
civilization of mankind, we shall readily confess the supremacy of its 
influences over the land of Hellas. Situated between Italy and Maritime 
Asia, Greece extended her open palm to give and to receive the posMon of 
physical and intellectual wealth of nations ; and her beneficent sway 
over the early fortunes of our race is attested by the noble colonies 
which left her fertile bosom. 

But it was not merely as a maritime country that she was distin- 
guished : it resulted from her configuration that her people united the 
hardihood of the mountaineer with the activity of the seaman; and 
perhaps nowhere did a country of such varied physical qualities call 
forth such varied intellectual excellence. 

We look in vain for similar effects among the cumbrous monarchies 
of the East, and we are led to contrast, with astonishment, the smallness 
of the country with the vastness of its achievements. With an area Dimensions 
about one-third less than the modern kingdom of Portugal, Greece of Greece, 
ranging from the parallel of Mount Olympus on the north, to Tasnarus 
her southern headland, extended 250 miles ; whilst two-thirds of that 
distance would conduct the traveller from Leucadia, her western 
extreme, to the temple of Minerva, on the eastern promontory of 
Sunium. 



122 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



Pindus and 
Tomarus. 



But if the superficies of Hellas was insignificant, the extent of her 
coasts was great ; its indentations supplied the paucity of her southern 
Chief rivers. Greece was essentially a region of mountains, Thessaly form- 
characteristic i n g almost the only considerable champaign land ; and this character- 
istic imparted that peculiar feature which Homer designated by the 
title of mountain torrent. 1 Nature has divided Hellas into two grand 
portions in separating the north from the south by the Corinthian 
Gulf. We shall take a rapid survey of the former, and we shall have 
Parallelism occasion to observe, very generally, an attendant parallelism between 
moinSins™ 1 r ^ vers an d mountains. The Cambunian range, the north-eastern 
barrier of Thessaly, is sedulously attended by the river Haliacmon, till 
it flows into the Thermaic Gulf on the east, while Mounts Asnaus and 
iEropus follow the sweep of the river Aous, till it falls into the sea on 
the western coast, near Apollonia. 

Having thus observed the northern boundary of Greece, we now 
remark two mountain ranges running from north to south ; they are 
— Pindus, accompanied by the river Achelous, flowing into the 
entrance of the Corinthian Gulf ; and the range of Tomarus, again 
running south, attended by the Arachthus, which finds an outlet in 
the Ambracian Gulf ; the Peneus sweeps along harmoniously with the 
waving line of Mounts Phaastus and Cercetius, till it forces a passage 
for its waters through the vale of Tempe, between Mounts Ossa and 
Olympus, and here it reaches the Thermaic Gulf : thus on the north- 
east are four corresponding curves, two of rivers and two of mountains. 
Still more to the south the river Spercheius follows the line of Mount 
Othrys, and the Cephissus, Mount (Eta and Cnemis. 8 We have, 
therefore, in Greece the same features which characterise the moun- 
tain system in Spain, the construction of gigantic walls by Nature for 
the guidance of her waters. Whilst Epirus, forming the north-west 

1 Xilftappo;. The " Wadis" of Arabia, literally " channels," were of a similar 
nature. In the course of time the term was used to designate rivers in general, 
and hence, as a special term by the Moors of Spain, the " Guadalquivir," i. e. 
Wad-al-qabir, the great channel. 

2 Thessaly was divided into five districts ; Histioeotis, Pelasgiotis, Thessaliotis, 
Phthiotis, and Magnesia. The chief towns of the first province were, Gomphi, 
Tricca, Phaestus, Ithome, a rock castle belonging to Metropolis, and Pharycedon. 
The streams and tributaries of the Peneus were, Lethaeus, Ion, Eurotas, Curalius, 
and Atrax. Pelasgiotis, once frequently inundated by the Peneus, had, as chief 
cities, Larissa (capital of Thessaly) ; Scotusa ; Cynoscephalse, famed for the defeat 
of Philip II. of Macedon by the Romans ; Gonni, at the entrance of Tempe ; 
Pheraa, celebrated by Jason ; and Elataea. Its chief streams were, the Onchestus 
and its tributary the Arausus : its lakes were Baebeis and Nessonis. The chief 
towns of the (Enianes, the inhabitants of Thessaliotis, were Hellas, the original 
seat of the Hellenes ; Hypata, the key of Southern Thessaly ; and Pharsalus, 
now Forsa, near the spot where Pompey was defeated by Caesar. In Phthiotis, 
the country of Achilles, the promontories were, Posidium and Pyrrhse. In 
this fabulous land of the Centaurs and Lapithae, the most remarkable towns were, 
Phthia, the capital ; Larissa ; Cremaste ; Thebae ; Pteleum ; Lamia, renowned 
for the Lamiac war ; and Thaumaci, overlooking the Maliac Gulf. Magnesia con- 
tained Demetria, on the Pelasgic Gulf; Methone; and Melibcea, on the eastern 
shore. 



The river 
Spercheius. 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



123 



division of Greece, was scantily supplied, nature seems to have ^ rfcilit 1 y of 
lavished abundance upon the rich plains of Thessaly. A glance at 
her sweeping mountain barriers will at once convey the idea of an 
enormous basin favourable to spontaneous production. 

Not only does the Peneus, descending from Pindus, glide through 
this rich land, but a crowd of tributary streams helps to increase its 
fertilising powers. While Thessaly enjoyed the facilities for internal 
navigation, an advantage which attached to no other district of Greece, 
nature, by bursting the mountain barriers of Ossa and Olympus, 1 and 
fashioning the delightful vale of Tempe or the Cut, had reclaimed 
from the stagnant waters a vast tract of country, now enriched by the 
fertilising deposits of ages. Thus Thessaly became essentially a land 
of flocks and herds, and smiling corn-fields ; it was the pasture-ground 
of warlike steeds, and witnessed the mythologic array of the wild 
Centaurs. 

Its coasts were rich in harbours ; amongst them was Iolcos, whence ioicos, the 
the Argonauts embarked on their romantic voyage. But the wealth pof t ° naUtlC 
which nature showered down upon this delightful region was abused, 
and no people in Hellas so indulged in sensual enjoyments. 

Immediately to the south of Thessaly the traveller observes a suc- 
cession of mountain ranges and isolated peaks. Mounts (Eta and 
Tymphrestus are particularly prominent. Beneath the towering cliffs 
of the former stood Leonidas, with the illustrious three hundred. 
Parnassus, Helicon, and Citheeron then take up the chain of mountain 
heights, till they terminate in Mount Brilessus, adjoining the glorious 
field of Marathon. 




As Thessaly exhibited on her southern frontier a gigantic natural Bopotia. 
wall productive of fertility by retaining within its bounds the rich 
alluvium, a similar process is displayed in Boeotia, 2 though on a 

1 Herod, viii. 6. 

8 The chief towns of Boeotia, whose poetical name is iEonia, are, Ascra, the 
native place of Hesiod ; Elataea, the mythological birth-place of Dionysus, Eleu- 



124 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



smaller scale. Here Parnassus, Helicon, Cithseron, and Ptous enclose 
a wide plain ; while the Boeotian Cephissus, and numerous mountain 
Lake Copais. streams, after enriching the soil, formed several lakes, of which Copais, 
celebrated for its eels, is the largest. A great part of the rich 

Boeotian plain would be speedily 
covered by the waters of the 
Copais, did they not escape by 
subterraneous passages, or Kata- 
bothra, as they are styled by the 
modern Greeks. In the north- 
western frontier of Bceotia was 
Phocis ; its chief harbour, on the 
Corinthian Gulf, Crissea, made it 
a nursery for seamen. (Eta, on 
the north, trained its hardy 
mountaineers ; while Mount Par- 
nassus, in the centre, fostered 
the devout pilgrimages of the 
Delphi. inhabitants of all Greece. Here rose Delphi, overshadowed by 
the awful rock of Pytho, hard by the oracle of Apollo. Hither 
despots, cities, tribes, and nations despatched, in countless abund- 
ance, their costly offerings, all placed under his especial protection ; a 
treasury oftener plundered by the barbarians than defended by the 
Amphic- guardian deity. 1 Here the majestic Council of Amphictyon, with a 
Council solemnity corresponding to the scenery, held its sittings. Here, 
pouring down from the double rift of Parnassus, and fed by the per- 
Spring of petual snow of the mountain, was the translucent spring of Castalia, 
Castaha. w here the poets of Greece poured forth their strains in all the rivalry 
of hallowed song. The fountain still murmurs on, though the voices 
of the pilgrims, and minstrels of Apollo, have long been mute. The 
Castalian spring is clear, and forms an excellent beverage ; the foun- 
tain is ornamented with pendent ivy, and overshadowed by a large 
fig-tree : after a quick descent to the bottom of the valley, through a 




theris, and Libethrius. Its rivers are, the Cephissus, Ismenus, and Asopus. The 
inferior streams are, the Lamius, Olmius, Permessus, Platanus, Lophis, and Triton. 
The cities of Bceotia were, Orchomenos, renowned for its wealth even in Homer's 
time; Chseronsea, remarkable for the defeat of the Athenians by the Thebans, 
B. C. 447, and subsequently by Philip, B. C. 338 ; Lebadsea ; Coronea ; Copae, on 
the north of Lake Copais ; Anthedon, a harbour famed for its trade in sponge ; 
Crissa, a harbour on the Corinthian Gulf ; Platsea, renowned for its long siege by 
Sparta ; the harbour Oropus ; and the capital, Thebae, celebrated as the birth- 
place of Heracles, Pindar, Pelopidas, and Epameinondas. 

1 The chief river, the Cephissus, flows into lake Copais ; the smaller streams 
are the Pleistus, the Cachales, and the Charadrus. The most remarkable cities 
of Phocis are, Cirrha, the sacred port of Delphi ; Crissa, placed in the fertile vale 
of Crissa, but destroyed by the Amphictyons ; Anticirrha, the head port ; the 
sacred Delphi, on the declivity of Parnassus ; Elataaa ; Abae ; Panopese ; Daulis ; 
and Phocion, celebrated for the congress of the Phocian deputies. 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



125 



narrow and rocky glen, it joins the little river Pleistus. 1 Of Delphi 
and its 3000 statues not a vestige remains. 

The mountain range of Parnassus, Helicon, and Cithaeron, has now 
conducted our footsteps to Attica, 2 the land of civilization and the Attica, 
arts. This renowned division of Greece, which still continues to 
exercise a living influence wherever mind exists, is a peninsula of 
irregular triangular form, fifty miles in length by about thirty in 
breadth, gradually tapering to the southern headland of Sunium, Form and 
which looked either to the innumerable gulfs and bays of Pelopon- P osltlon - 
nesus, to the islands of the iEgasan, or the fertile coasts of Asia. 
Attica was thus placed by nature in the vanguard of colonization, and 
nobly did she fulfil her mission. She was gifted too with the internal 
elements of self-education. While her air was light and pure, her influence 
soil was superficial : hence necessity urged her to habits of industrious propertTesf 
cultivation, and she thereby escaped the moral and physical perils 
engendered by the fertility of Thessaly. The barrenness of Attica re- 
sulted from her geological formation. Her northern frontier running east ^mSf 
and west, consists of a range of mountains of primitive limestone, whilst 
her western hills of a similar stratification form a boundary which is 
traversed by elevations of varying character from north to south, 
terminating in the celebrated silver mines of Laureium. On the sides 
of this hill there is a scanty growth of the mountain pine, though Scanty 
throughout the hills of Attica few timber trees are to be found. But vegetatlon - 
this barrenness of vegetation was nobly compensated by the richness of 
her marble quarries, which fostered not only the physical but the 
immortal existence of her intellectual children, by rendering their 
works of art eternal. Though Attica never produced as much corn 
as would supply her own inhabitants, her commercial activity and 
the culture of the olive, tended to encourage habits of successful Laborious 
industry : how far these were pushed, may be seen by the traces of cultlvatl0n - 
laborious cultivation carried up artificial mountain-terraces. Nor are 
the chief features of the country changed : no sooner do the plains 
alternate with the mountains, than forests of olive-trees, grove after Attic olive 
grove, rise in endless array, while each century sends forth new scions stream^ 
to succeed the parent stock. 3 These olive-groves are described as 
extremely beautiful. The streamlets which flow from the Cephissus 
and Ilissus are clear as crystal, whilst the purity of the atmosphere 
has given to her marble relics the peculiar golden tint of ripened 
corn. 4 Athens herself, the imperial mistress of the seas, lies in a Position of 
plain surrounded on three sides by mountains at a moderate distance Attlca- 

1 Dod well's Travels, i. 172. 

2 The promontories of Attica not mentioned in the text are, Zoster, Astypalaea, 
Amphiale, facing Salamis, and Cynosura, on the eastern shore. Besides Athens, 
the capita], the principal towns were, Decelea ; Acharnas; Phylae, the stronghold 
of the patriotic Thrasybulus ; Eleusis ; Aphidna, the harbour of Panormus, on the 
eastern coast of Attica ; and Harma, 

3 Parries and iEgialeus, vol. i. pp. 505-509, by Dodwell. 

4 See Dr. Clarke's Travels in Greece. 



126 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



General 
appearance 
of Athens. 



The 

Mesogaia. 



Doris. 



Doris the 
residence 
of the 
Heracleidae. 



Western 
Locrians. 



from her fortified walls. She was styled by way of eminence, 
" Astu," or the City. 1 In this noble temple of freemen the embel- 
lishments of life appeared in their fairest perfection. The sublime 
dignity of iEschylus, and the harmonious sweetness of Sophocles 
united to adorn the glory of human nature. Painters, who had 
attained the noblest purity of design, adorned the magnificent halls 
of their native city with the forms of illustrious heroes. At the 
magic touch of Phidias sculpture sprang into life, and rendered every 
part of Athens august and venerable by the breathing forms of war- 
riors and of deities, while temples were reared, of which the smallest 
portions still excite the utmost delight and wonder. Imagination can 
conceive nothing more glorious than this city ; its halls and temples 
of the most exquisite workmanship — the dazzling whiteness of its 
buildings relieved by the freshest verdure — the multitude of statues 
disposed with the finest taste — and all its far-stretching crowd of 
domes and columns, overhung by a sky of the deepest blue, and 
connected by a noble line of fortresses with the free and sparkling 
ocean. 

Rising above Mount Hymettus (then as now celebrated fbr its 
honey), the Pentelic Heights, forming the range of the Attic high- 
lands, after trending eastward, bounded the glorious plain of Mara- 
thon, with the aid of Mount Parnes, and the waters of the Euboean 
channel ; whilst a low range of hills divided the Mesogaia, or mid- 
land district, a tolerably level tract, from the coast. As the Attic 
seaman rounded Cape Sunium, he might discern the lofty spear and 
helm of his guardian divinity towering high above the Attic soil in 
front of the hallowed temple of the goddess — he was everywhere 
reminded of his nationality and his religion. 

Doris, a narrow tract of undulating land, whose soil was rich in 
grain and pastures, fenced in by the rugged cliffs and deep glens of 
Parnassus and (Eta, was watered by several small streams. The 
traveller enters Doris on the north, either by the narrow pass that 
traverses the eastern point of (Eta, or by its western ridge, whilst a 
mountain tract running southward, conducts him to the vale of Crissa. 
The small territory of Doris 2 obtained a mythologic celebrity, as 
the residence of the Heracleidas, when in exile : from this insignificant 
district proceeded those powerful Doric tribes which wrought such 
mighty revolutions in Southern Greece. 

The western Locrians, lying to the south of Doris, touched the 
Corinthian Gulf on one side, on the other iEtolia ; 3 this is a consider- 

1 Nationality and religion have similar tendencies. The Arabs styled Jatreb, in 
Arabia, "Medineh," "The City," from its being the seat of the Mahomedan 
empire. — Vide D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale, " Medinah." 

2 The Dryopes were the original inhabitants of Doris, with whom the Hellenic 
Dorians subsequently joined. The chief cities were, Pindus, Boius, and Erineus. 

3 The mountains of iEtolia were, Bomia, Corax, Pansetolium, Chalcis, Ara- 
cynthus, Taphiassus, and Tymphaestus, an extension of Pindus. In addition to 
the Achelous, the chief river, forming the boundary between Acarnania and iEtolia, 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



127 



able district, savage and rugged in the extreme, where the severity Cape 
of the highland winter is such, that the intercommunication of the Leuca 
villages, which are nestled on rocky heights, is entirely cut off during 
considerable intervals. The broad and 
fruitful plains, however, traversed by 
the Achelous, the most important river 
in Hellas, form an exception to these 
severe characteristics. During the 
Roman conquest of Greece, the JEto- 
lians made a fierce but unsuccessful 
resistance: their country lay next to 
Acarnania, a triangular region, bounded 
on the north by the Ambracian gulf, 
on the west by the Ionian sea. The 
most westerly headland of Acarnania is 
the Leucadian promontory, a white per- 
pendicular clirl of great elevation, 1 
which, in the Homeric time, was joined 
to the main land. 3 It obtained a still 
greater celebrity as the Lover's Leap. 
Acarnania, like iEtolia, was a moun- 
tainous land, though less conspicuous : its hills are yet covered with 
dense forests, while its valleys embrace extensive lakes bordered by 
verdant pastures. 

The province immediately conducting the traveller from Attica to 
the Peloponnesus is Megaris, 3 which derived its chief importance Megaris. 
from its two ports, Pagge and Nisaea; the first, on the Corinthian 
Gulf, her northern waters ; the second, looking towards the important 
island of iEgina, in the Saronic Gulf. While a mountain-pass traversed 
the ridge of Geranese from sea to sea, another led southward towards 
Central Peloponnesus, through Corinth. 4 

Corinth, the land of elegance and taste, many of whose works of art Corinth, 
still survive the conquests of barbarians and of Time, combined the 



the smaller streams are, the Therrnissus and the Evenus ; the lakes are, Cynia, 
Hydra, Melite, and Triehonis. Though a rugged and wild country, iEtolia gave 
birth to the heroes Meleager, JEtolus, (Eneus, Oxylus, Thoas, and Diomedes. 
Calydonia, the neighbourhood of Calydon, the capital, was the renowned scene of 
the grand hunting-party of Meleager. The other towns were, Curium, the ports 
Eleus, Molycria, Metropolis, on the Achelous, and Thermon, so named frorn its 
hot medicinal waters. 

1 Vide Gell, Itiner. Greece. 2 Odyssey, xxiv. 377. 

8 The promontories of Megara are, the Scironian rocks, renowned for the free- 
booter Sciron ; and Minoa. The principal cities are, the capital, Megara, with its 
two fortresses, Alcathoos and Caria ; Nisaaa, and Tripodiscus. The seaports of 
Megara are noticed above. 

4 The Pelasgi, the first inhabitants, were joined by the iEolians, who were soon 
expelled by the Dorian Aletes. Not far from Corinth were the temples of 
Bellerophon and Aphrodite ; likewise Craneum, a delightful grove. 




128 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



singular advantages of a commercial and military position of the highest 
Military and character. With a port on its northern and its southern sea, the 
po^tToTof 1 former to receive the wealth of Europe, the latter the riches of Asia, 
this province became the emporium of commercial production, and, by 
fortifying the isthmus, Corinth might have been the arbiter of Greece, 
had not her strong bias for commerce swallowed up every other incli- 
nation. 



Corinth. 




Isthmus of 
Corinth. 



This important isthmus, the key to the Peloponnesus, is nearly 
five miles in length. Here was the Diolcos, or ship-traverse, by 
The Diolcos. which vessels were drawn by machinery overland from sea to sea, 
near to the town of Schcenus. With heavy ships of war this 
was not usual, the operation being principally applied to trading 
vessels ; still the process conveys a fair idea of the progress of 
the Corinthians in the mechanical arts. The expense of the ope- 
ration, however, and still more the tediousness of Peloponnesian 
circumnavigation, led to many efforts to unite the waters of the 
Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. It is certain that the engineering skill 
of the age was quite equal to any effort of this kind ; to be convinced 
of this, we have only to observe the brilliant enterprise of the Samians, 
crowned with complete success, the construction of a tunnel through 
a mountain 4247 feet in length, in the centre of which was an aque- 
duct conveying water from a copious spring : while their magnificent 
breakwater, carried to a length of 1213 feet at a depth of one hundred 
Efforts to cut fathoms, 1 clearly evinces the feasibility of an Isthmian canal by 
Shmus the Corinthian artificers. Successive attempts, however, appear to have 
been made by Periander, Demetrius Poliorcetes, Alexander, Julius 

1 Herod, ii. 62. Vide also Life of Herodotus, in " History of Greek Litera- 
ture," of this series, by the Editor. 



Samian 
engineering 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



129 



Caesar, Caligula, Nero; all of which, though commenced with con- 
siderable energy, were abandoned. 1 But the chief interest attached to 
this district lies in the city of Corinth herself, styled " the wealthy," 
and in modem times, and not without good reason, " the Gibraltar of 
Greece." At the height of nineteen hundred feet towered the magnifi- Citadel of 
cent hill of Acrocorinthus, for one hundred generations the fortress of Corinth - 
the sons of Corinth. Scarcely did any city in Greece lay claim to a 
higher antiquity, and possibly with great justice, since the pre-eminent 
advantages of its position must have made it one of the earliest seats 
of opulence. Sisyphus, Bellerophon, and a long line of mythologic 
heroes were its sovereigns : it is noticed by Homer, 2 in his day, as Noticed by 
" the wealthy ;" and the greatest historian of Greece mentions that xhucvdMet 
the Corinthians were the first to build war galleys. 3 

The arts of painting, sculpture, bronze work, were at Corinth car- Corinthian 
ried to the highest perfection, rendering that noble city the emporium Fini Arts* 
of the fine arts in Greece ; and so beautiful were its vases that they 
realized high prices at Rome, whither they were sent by Caesar's 
colonists, who had ransacked the tombs to procure them : the Co- 
rinthian brass was particularly prized. We shall not be surprised to 
find that this grand exchange for Asiatic, Italian, and Phoenician 
merchandise, realised from its duties a revenue so vast as to become a 
magnificent and voluptuous temple for the worship of Aphrodite. 
From the city walls ran two long lines of masonry to the sea-shore, Long walls 
connecting it with Lechaeum, its harbour, on the Corinthian Gulf ; of Corinth - 
whilst a road to the south-east, at the distance of five miles, led to 
Cenchraea, its other harbour on the Saronic Gulf, and travellers 
between the Peloponnesus and Northern Greece passed beneath its 
seductive walls. The remains of the theatre, stadium, and amphi- Antiquities, 
theatre, are still to be seen near the ancient town, and several seats of 
the latter, hewn in the rocky soil, are visible. Corinth still possesses 
an abundance and purity of water unequalled by any other maritime 
city of Hellas. 

After leaving Achaia, 4 a long strip of territory bordering upon the Achaia. 
southern shores of the Corinthian Gulf, the traveller reaches Arcadia, Arcadia, 
the centre of the Peloponnesus, a mountainous district, highly charac- 
teristic of the whole region of southern Greece, which has been aptly 
compared to the outline of the plane-tree leaf. Of the six provinces of 
the " Island of Pelops," this is the largest, and contains within itself 
the sources of most of the Peloponnesian rivers. Of the triple moun- 
tain range that traverses Southern Greece from north to south, the 

1 "... .Augustias eas, tentavere, Demetrius rex, dictator Caesar, Caius princeps, 
Domitius Nero, infausto ut omnium exitu patuit incepto." See also Dodwell's 
Tour, ii. 184. Plin. H. N. iv. 5. 

2 II. ii. 570 ; xiii. 663. 3 Thucyd. i. 13. 

4 The chief products of Achaia were oil, vegetables, corn, and wine. On the 
sea-coast the land often suffered from floods. The promontories were Rhium, 
Drepanon, and Araxus. The cities were Pellene, on the east ; Ceraunia ; and 
Panormus, an excellent roadstead. 

[H. G.] K 



130 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



Pastures of middle chain intersects Arcadia, a land celebrated not only for its 
Arcadia. streams and mountains, but for the freshness and verdure of its pas- 
tures. The numerous torrents which descend from the mountain sides 
into the rocky hollows of the Arcadian crater discharge themselves 
through the gorge of Mount Lycaeus, situated at its northern foot. 
Course of the Taking a north-westerly direction, the rivers of central Arcadia, after 
Alpheus. mingling their waters with the Alpheus, find their way into the Ionian 
Sea. On the eastern face of Arcadia, morasses similar to those in 
Bceotia would everywhere be seen, were it not for the geological 
formation of this pastoral land, for on the eastern side of Arcadia there 
is no similar vent to that we have just described. 
Perforation The limestone strata, however, are perforated by these streams, by 
sto?e, andT which emissaries have been formed fertilising the adjacent regions, 
formation of Thus the river Stymphalus, after flowing below the southern base of 
Cyllene, enters the earth at the foot of a limestone precipice, whence, 
after running its dark course beneath a mountain range, it emerges 
from the recesses of Mount Chaon, runs rapidly into Argolis, and, 
under the name of Erasinus, mingles with the sea in the Argolic Gulf. 
The usual phenomenon of latitude balanced by elevation of surface is 
seen in the case of Peloponnesus. While snow whitens the hills of 
Arcadia and the plains of Tegea, in the region of Argos, at no great 
distance, the sun shines and violets bloom, nor are fruitful vales 
wanting as the country slopes off towards the south. Essentially a 
Character- land of shepherds and of mercenary soldiers, Arcadia, like the moun- 
ArcadL tahi regions of the globe, may furnish no inconclusive theory to the 
physiologist. Switzerland, Scotland, Nepaul, and AfFghanistan, have 
ever sent forth their quota of mountain warriors, ready for foreign 
service ; trained hardihood and poverty, however, are the real ele- 
ments which have ever been at work in producing corresponding 
Rugged results. The Arcadians 1 were scarcely an Hellenic race ; hence, we 
Arcadians! 16 are n °f *° be surprised that they retained their pastoral, habits and 
rugged manners ; their worship of Pan, and the music of their pipe 
maintained its place, and even found a favourable admittance at the 
Modem classic representations of the polished Athenian. " Nature," observes 
byToe^man Bartholdy, 2 has destined this country for herdsmen ; the ^pastures in 
traveller. summer are always green ; the shade and moisture preserve them. 

The country has an appearance similar to that of Switzerland ; the 
Arcadians in some measure resembled the inhabitants of the Alps. 
They possessed a love of freedom, and of money ; wherever there was 
money you might see Arcadian hirelings. But it is the west of 
Arcadia where Pan invented the shepherd's flute, which deserves the 

1 The principal heights of these highlands are Cyllene on the north-east, with 
the ridges of Lampi, Pholoe, Erymanthus, Artemision, and Stymphalon. The 
southern chain is Mount Lycseus. The lesser heights are Alesium, iEnus, Aca- 
cesium, Nomia, Anchisia, Orchomenus, Cerausium, and Mseralium. In the east 
stood the famous city of Mantineia, renowned for the glorious death of Epameinondas., 

2 Bruch. zu nahern Kennt. d. Griech. 239. 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



131 



name of a pastoral country. Innumerable brooks, rushing impetuously, 
or gently munmiring, pour down the mountains. Vegetation is rich 
and magnificent ; everywhere freshness and coolness are found. One 
flock of sheep succeeds another as far as Taygetus, where there are 
numerous herds of goats." To enhance the dignity of remote origin, claims of tht 
the Arcadians gave to their tribe the imposing title " Proseleni," fntiqm^ty t0 
(before the moon) ; their country was originally styled Drymotes, 
The Woodland. The principal mountains, whence descend the 
streams that water the Peloponnesus, are Maenalaus, Erymanthus, 
Cyllene, Lycseus, Olygirtus, and Crathis. 

To the west of Arcadia lay Elis, the " Holy Land " of Greece. If Elis. 
Laconia was essentially the abode of war, this was indubitably the 
land of peace ; and it was considered under the direct protection of the 
patron god of the Olympic games, which were here celebrated. So 
much was this sacred district respected in early times, that troops a sacred 
obliged to pass through it, delivered up their arms on entering it, and territor y- 
on leaving the frontier received them again. 1 In addition to the prin- 
cipal rivers — the Peneus and Alpheus, flowing into the Ionian Sea — 
numerous streams water the southern parts of Elis. Its chief dis- 
tricts were Elis proper, on the north ; Pisatis permeated by the 
Alpheus, and Triphylia, its southern division. A spectator posted upon 
the lofty watch-tower of the Lycsean heights of Arcadia, as he gazes 
towards the north-west, beholds the fruitful plains of Elis ranging 
along the plains of Peloponnesus, whilst his delighted vision takes in 
the wide and luxuriant plain of Olvmpia, rendered verdant by the 
waters of the meandering Alpheus. 

From Arcadia, the vast natural bulwark of the Peloponnesus, 
whose mountain walls are carried out to the extreme south, the tra- 
veller enters Laconia, the land of warriors. The river Eurotas — its Laconia. 
waters are unsurpassed in Greece for clearness and purity — flowing 
southward into the Laconian Gulf, takes a middle course through this 
province corresponding with the waving lines of Mount Taygetus on 
the west and Parnon on the east. The extent of Laconia 2 may 
be stated at about sixty miles in length by thirty-five in breadth. 
Nothing but the military tendencies of the Spartans prevented their 
becoming a flourishing commercial people; since their coasts were 
furnished w r ith many sea-ports, towns and harbours, the chief of 
which were Gythium, Epidaurus, Trinassus, and Acria. Their shores 
were likewise celebrated for yielding a shell-fish, whence was ob- 
tained a beautiful purple dye. The chief city of Laconia was Sparta, chief city 
situated on the Eurotas. Here the long valley which runs southward and river - 

1 Xenoph. Hist. Gr. iii. 2, 20. 

2 The most remarkable products of Laconia were an excellent breed of hounds ; 
wild goats, boars, deer, and vast quantities of game harboured on the wooded 
heights ; wool wrought and dyed by the Lacedaemonian women, and a blackish- 
green marble at Taenarus. The coast cities were Leuctrum, Thyrides, and 
Tsenarum. 

K 



132 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



towards the sea, is so contracted by the heights on either side of the 
river, as to leave space for little more than the channel of the 
river ; this valley, however, suddenly expands into the great plain 
of Laconia, which would extend uninterruptedly to the sea, were it 

Ridjje of not for Mount Evoras, a spur of the great mountain ridge of Taygetus. 

faygetus. n^his se p ara t e d on the north from Mount Menelaus by the 

basin of the Alpheus, reaches its greatest elevation about its centre ; 
here, under the name of Pentedactylon, it is conspicuous by its five 
snow-capped peaks, and is formidable by the rugged steepness of its 
sides ; its extremity is the rocky peninsula of Taenarus. 




vale of The vale of Sparta is picturesque, screened by its triple mountain 

Sparta. barriers from the piercing gale, but open to the breezes of the 
southern sea ; it is remarkable for the luxuriant fertility of its shrubs 
and fruit trees. While its lower grounds are clothed with pome- 
granates, oranges, and myrtles ; the mountain slopes are clad with 
plantations of olives. As the traveller rises to loftier heights, he 
encounters forests of firs, and deep gullies grooved out by the head- 
long torrents of Taygetus. The aspect of the mountain now assumes 
a bleak and savage character. Rugged ledges of precipitous rock and 
profound ravines are frequent; it then suddenly towers aloft into 
jagged and snow-capped peaks. It has been said by a celebrated 
poet, that " mountains interposed make enemies of nations ;" and in 
the case of Sparta this was particularly correct. 
The The long Apennine of Laconia was the barrier between Messenia 

of P Lacorda. and. Sparta, whose bitter enmity raged so fiercely and so long, ending 
only with the national extinction of the former. Had the line of the 
Taygetus been less formidable, it is probable that the Messenians 
would have harmoniously blended with their inveterate conquerors, 
and with them have formed the solid neucleus of an invincible 
Hellenic confederation. In addition to the Pamisus, the chief river of 
Messenia, which flows through the plain of Stenyclerus into the 
Messenian Gulf, there are numerous small streams everywhere fringing 
the west and south-western Messenian coast, adding greatly to the 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



133 



exuberant fertility of this region so celebrated in poetry, a portion of Macaria, or 
which was styled " the blessed." The plain of Stenyclerus became L™d." lessed 
the terrible arena of battle between the rival bands of Sparta and 
Messenia, since the passes leading from the north, east, and west 
severally fall into it. On the western coast is the deep bay of Pylos, Bay of Pylos. 
renowned in ancient history for the sovereignty of Nestor, and in 
modern days by the sea-fight of Navarino. The northern boundary of 
Messenia 1 was formed by the river Neda, so much connected with the Messenia. 
independence of the land, which, after rising in Arcadia, and flowing 
through a deep and savage glen near Mount Eira, falls into that part 
of the Ionian Sea, known under the name of the Cyparissian Gulf. 

In noticing the component parts of ancient Greece, besides her 
colonies, we must not omit the important island of Euboea, separated Greek islands 
by the channel of the Euripus from Attica and Bceotia ; the groups of boardtowns 
the Sporades and the Cyclades ; the great islands of Lesbos, Chios, of Asia, 
and Samos off the coast of Asia ; with her Hellenic sea-board towns, 
and the southern isles of Rhodes, Crete, and Cythera. 

From this outline of Grecian geography, it will be seen that, with the 
exception of Thessaly and Attica, Hellas is among the most moun- 
tainous countries in Europe, since, after we have done all to classify independent 
the various prominent ranges, there are so many scattered peaks and ™™Ser 
craggy heights of different magnitudes, that the level ground is 
insignificant to the entire area, and even the valleys are perpetually 
checked by spurs from the main ridges, or by isolated hills. Even 
of the present kingdom of Greece, which does not embrace Thes- Extent of 
saly, nearly two-thirds are taken up by rocks, mountains, forests, ™£ le 
lakes, and rivers ; the remainder being olive and currant grounds, 
vineyards, and land capable of cultivation. 2 There are two causes, 
however, which have given increased fertility to Greece ; the one sources of 
arising from the detritus of the older rock formations washed down fertility, 
by the mountain streams ; the other, the enriching filtration of various 
lakes, whose waters permeate the limestone structure ; while the 
Cyclades, Eubcea, and Attica, consist principally of micaceous schist ; Geological 
western and central Peloponnesus are of a calcareous formation, formation, 
whose colour and consistency, though frequently varying with locality, 
usually belong to the chalk. Conglomerates of lime and sand, 
calcareous breccia, and deposits of pebbles, are not unfrequently 
found. Though the mountain tracts were well wooded in ancient Deficiency 
times, they are now generally, with the exception of the Acarnanian jf a J£ od and 
and iEtolian ranges, destitute of timber and useful vegetation, while 
an additional inconvenience is found in the irregular and insufficient 
supply of water. In the spring the mountain streams are copious, but 

1 The Leleges are said to have been the first inhabitants of Messenia, then the 
Argivi, ^Eolians, and Dorians. Cyparissse, Pylos, Stenyclerus, and Messenia, were 
its principal towns. Eira, the Messenian frontier town, was defended for eleven 
years, by Aristomenes, against the whole power of Sparta. 

2 Vide Strong, Statist, of Gr. 



134 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



before the close of the summer they are exhausted. As there are not 
a few basins completely trenched in by rocky formations, 1 it is 
evident that their waters could find no egress but by subterranean 
rifts, an instance of which has been noticed in Copais in Bceotia, to 
which (in the same district) may be added Hyliee and Harma. To 
Adits driven, relieve these efforts of nature, the ancients, in some instances, con- 
constructed, structed an artificial tunnel with perpendicular shafts, of which a relic 
may be seen in the now obstructed emissary of the Cephissus. But 
Effects of while the rapid succession of valley and mountain in Greece produced 
geography, political results unfavourable to federative union, it in some measure 
balanced these results by producing intercommunication amongst its 
various tribes, through the medium of migratory shepherds, who, 
with their flocks and herds, during the heat of summer, repaired to 
the freshness of the hill pastures. Greece, ranging under the same 
parallels of latitude with southern Italy and Spain, in favourable 
Products of positions, abounded in the products of those fertile countries; the 
Greece. grape, the olive, flax, barley, enriched her inhabitants and embellished 
her landscape ; whilst a copious variety of plants, herbs, and trees 
was rendered available to commercial and domestic economy. The 
deficiency of a regulated internal trade in Greece, produced extensive 
importations of corn from the Euxine, Sicily, and the Tauric Cher- 
Diet of the sonese. Like the fare of the mountaineers of Scotland, the barley 
Greeks. ca k e wag more usually eaten than the wheaten loaf, which, with 
vegetables and salt-fish from the Propontis and Gades, formed the 
staple food of the Attic Greek ; the Spartans and Arcadians, how- 
ever, consumed a good deal of animal food, the former living much 
upon pork ; fresh meat was generally eaten at sacrifices and festivals, 
and the milk of ewes and goats was esteemed superior to that of 
Attic imports cows. 2 While Athens imported salt-fish, peltries, and pulse of 
and exports. var i ous kinds, her exports were the silver of Laureion, pottery, figs, 
olives, and oil ; and the superior activity and cultivation attendant on 
these processes, rendered the territory of ancient Hellas much more 
healthy than at present. Similar deteriorating elements have been at 
work in various parts of Italy to a most pernicious extent. 

On this subject Mr. Grote observes, 3 "There is reason to conclude 
that ancient Greece was much more healthy than the same territory is 
at present, inasmuch as it was more industriously cultivated, and the 
towns both more carefully administered and better supplied with water. 
But the differences in respect of healthiness, between one portion of 
Greece and another, appear always to have been considerable, and this, 
as well as the diversities of climate, affected the local habits and cha- 

1 The physical phenomena of Greece, differing from those of any other country, 
present a series of beautiful plains, successively surrounded by mountains of lime- 
stone, resembling — although upon a larger scale, and rarely accompanied by 
volcanic products — the craters of the Phlegrssan fields. — Vide Clarke's Travels, 
vol. ii. c. 4. 

2 Ar. Hist. An. iii. 15. 3 Hist. Greece, ii. 309. 



GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 



135 



racter of the particular sections. Not merely were there great differences 
between the mountaineers and inhabitants of the plains — between the 
Locrians, iEtolians, Phokians, Dorians, (Etceans, and Arcadians, on one 
hand, and the inhabitants of Attica, Bceotia, and Elis, on the other — 
but each of the various tribes which went to compose these categories 
had its peculiarity." 

We have then observed that Hellas, from her central maritime 
position and from her mountains, united in the Greek the character of 
mountaineer and seaman. On the other hand, we perceive how, from 
the variety of her provinces and tribes, her independence became 
fractional, and she was reduced to an aggregate of slavery. The 
political events connected with the physical geography of this wonderful 
country will be developed in the sequel of this work. 



CHAPTER VII. 



b. c. 884. 

Late founda- 
tion of 
historical 
criticism in 
Greece. 



Rational- 
izing 
processes. 



Earliest 
historical 
portion of 
Greece. 



Sources of 
information 
few and 
slender. 



EARLF HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN STATES. 
b. c. 884 to b. c. 585. 

The foundation of an historical sense in Hellas, and the adoption of 
an historical canon by its writers, came too late to rescue many of her 
most powerful political agents from the darkness of antiquity, save 
that which is enlightened by the uncertain glimmer of tradition. The 
romantic legends planted by the great poet of Greece, cling with so 
tenacious a hold to the columns of the temple of Truth, that, in the 
effort to remove their venerable luxuriance, the edifice itself is greatly 
shaken. Nor can we approve of the succedaneous material of which 
those columns have since been re-formed. The rationalizing process 
introduced by the logographers, and carried forward by Euemerus, 
Palcephatus, and finally by the Neologists of Germany, has only sub- 
stituted ingenious theories for supposed facts — theories which, how- 
ever plausible, must ever remain incapable of demonstration. 1 

The first portion of Hellas that, aided by historic light, emerges 
from the mists of legend, is the province of Sparta ; and we are called 
to survey the formation of her political structure, rather than the per- 
sonality of the builder. The former reposes upon an historical basis ; 
the latter has no identity, and, as a political agent, is as legendary as 
the heroic personalities. 2 With the exception of some slender notices 
in Tyrtseus, Alcman, and Simonides, Plutarch, our chief informant on 
the Spartan institutes, quotes no authority of greater antiquity than 
Xenophon and Plato. The artificial arrangement of the whole line of 

1 Vide Grote's chapter on " Allegory," in History of Greece. 

2 Vide Muller's Dorians, I. vii. 6. 



EAELY HISTOEY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN STATES. 



137 



the Lycurgean ancestry, and the care with which it is carried up to a 
divine original, give us an insight into the limited trustworthiness of 
Hellenic genealogy, and illustrate that ambitious failing of the Greek 
character. 1 

1 Sparta, the rival of Athens, in arms, if not in arts, is one of the most remarkable 
of the early states of Greece. Not exempt from the usual prejudices of antiquity, 
the kings of Sparta ascribed their origin to the gods, threw a veil of splendour over 
the obscurity of their origin, and thus supported the allegiance of the people by 
superstition. Accordingly we find it alleged, that Lacedsemon, the first king of 
Sparta, was the son of the god Jupiter, by a mortal named Taygeta. This monarch 
married Sparta, or Sparte, the daughter of Eurotas, gave his own name (Lacedsemon 
or Lacedsemonia) to the country which he governed, and honoured his wife by 
bestowing hers (Sparta) upon the city which he founded there. Perhaps the only 
fact to be deduced from these records is, that monarchy was the earliest form of 
government in this country. Twelve lungs, after Lacedsemon, are said to have 
reigned over Sparta ; not indeed in lineal male succession, although they were all 
connected by relationship, whose names it may be sufficient here to mention ; for 
little else has come down to us concerning the greater part of them, and of the rest, 
much of what has sometimes passed for truth is now placed, by the best critics, 
amongst the terra incognita of history. Thus we have Amyclas, the successor of 
Lacedaemon, and after him his three sons, Angalus, Cynortas, and Hyacinthus ; the 
latter of whom is said to have been killed by Apollo, and by that god afterwards 
turned into a violet. Then followed (Ebalus, the son of Cynortas, who gave his 
own name to a particular district of the country, of which he assigned the govern- 
ment to his son Hippocoon, and the rest of the kingdom to another son, Tyndareus ; 
but Hippocoon afterwards drove Tyndareus from the throne. A story is then told 
of the god Heracles having been offended by Hippocoon, whose sons had beaten to 
death one iEonus, a cousin of that god ; and that Hip pocoon and ten of his sons were 
slain in an engagement with the followers of Heracles. Tyndareus, the banished 
monarch, was then reseated on the Spartan throne, and succeeded by his sons, the 
demigods Castor and Pollux, in whom the male line of the divinely-descended 
Lacedaemon became extinct. Menelaus next governed Sparta, in right of his wife 
Helen, the sister of Castor and Pollux, and the fatal cause of the Trojan war. Helen 
was first stolen away by Theseus, and, after she was recovered by her brothers, her 
suitors took an oath that they would leave her to fix her own choice of a husband, 
to whom, in case she should be again carried off, they would all unite in restoring 
her. Menelaus being the husband of her own election, and this firebrand of beauty 
being again seized by Paris, her former lovers, in fulfilment of their oaths, undertook 
the siege of Troy. 

Clytemnestra, the other daughter of Tyndareus, was the cause of almost equal 
discord and calamity with her sister Helen ; for having lived in adultery during the 
absence of her husband, Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, she caused or con- 
nived at his murder. Menelaus, after the siege of Troy, returned to Sparta, and 
was succeeded on the throne by his two sons, Nicostratus and Megapenthes, not the 
offspring of Helen, but of another wife. The Lacedaemonians, however, threw off 
the yoke of these spurious kings, and elected for their monarch Orestes, son of 
Clytemnestra by Agamemnon, who had revenged his father's murder by that of his 
mother ; an act for which he is said to have been accused by his uncle Perilaus 
before the court of the Areopagus, though we are not informed of the issue. Orestes 
enjoyed a long reign, and died in Arcadia. Tisamenes, the son of Orestes by Her- 
mione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, was now raised to the throne, in whom 
this short dynasty ended on his expulsion by the Heraclida?, the descendants of 
Heracles, the ancient enemy of the Spartan kings. The reign of these celebrated 
sovereigns is by some writers said to have begun in the persons of Eurysthenes and 
Procles, sons of Aristodemus, while others assign that honour to Aristodemus him- 
self. With its new masters, the government of Sparta now took a singular form , 



138 



LYCURGUS. 




LYCURGUS. 
B. C. 884, Thirlwall. B. c. 830-820, Grote. 
Lycurgus. j n Sparta, previous to Lycurgus, the following names are recorded 
s bearing the title of king, whatever were the separate powers of 
their sovereignty. Echestratus, the son of Agis ; Labotas, son of 
Echestratus; and Doryssus. Then followed Agesilaus and Arche- 
laus ; in the same line, that of Eurosthenes. In the line of Procles 
followed Sous, Eurytion, and Prytanis, Eunomus, and Polydectes. 
From Eunomus 1 sprang the illustrious Lycurgus, the great lawgiver 
of the nation, to whom Polydectes, the son of Eunomus by another 
wife, left the kingdom on his death; and Lycurgus thus became 
cotemporary sovereign with Archelaus. During the period of the 
above-mentioned dynasties, nothing of moment occurs in the annals of 
Sparta, except a war with the Cynosureans, a colony of Argives, the 
issue of which appears to have been very indecisive. It seems clear, 
however, that the internal state of the kingdom was generally that of 
much confusion and disorder. 

These circumstances, therefore, together with the rank to which 
Lycurgus was entitled by birth, afforded him an opportunity to dis- 
play those talents winch otherwise might have been entirely obscured. 
This celebrated lawgiver, by the fame of his institutions, has 



and under the twin brothers, Eurysthenes and Procles, became a diarchy, or a double 
monarchical state, both these kings reigning with equal authority throughout the 
whole kingdom ; a mode of administration which seems to have been continued, not 
only during the lives of its founders, but in their descendants through several gene- 
rations. In the one line, Agis succeeded his father Eurysthenes, and from him the 
title of Agidae was given to his successors ; on the other side, Eurytionida? became 
the name of those princes who descended from Procles, so called from Euiytion, the 
grandson of that prince. The jealousies of the rival sovereigns, however, at length 
gave birth to hostile parties in the state, and every contention between the governors 
increased the weakness of the kings whilst it augmented the power of the people. 

1 Eunomus, or Good-law, is a most suspicious name for the parentage of Lycurgus, 
and well exemplifies the Greek fondness for artificial etymology. — Edit. 



LYCURGUS. 



139 



attracted the attention of inquisitive and reflecting minds in every 
age ; while the circumstances of his personal history, and even the 
precise nature of those institutions, the manner in which they were 
received by his countrymen, and the extent to which they were 
adopted, are points all involved in an uncertainty which it is now im- 
possible to remove. 

Plutarch, whose Life of Lycurgus, and " Laws and Customs of the 
Lacedaemonians," we must be content to follow through some portion 
of our way, appears to have diligently collected and preserved most 
of the information on those subjects which had escaped the ravages of 
time. He wrote, too, at a period when, though Sparta, with the 
rest of Greece, had been reduced to the condition of a Roman province, 
yet her institutions still retained some of their influence, and curiosity 
would naturally be excited to learn the history of her lawgiver. It 
appears from Horace 1 that patiens Lacedcemon was a theme among the 
courtiers of Augustus. Livy, also, in the same age, had celebrated 
her rigid discipline, 2 and described the city as distinguished, not by 
magnificent buildings, but by a well-ordered government. 3 Yet, so 
little had been clone to separate truth from fiction in the Spartan 
story, that Plutarch commences his account of her lawgiver by the 
confession that he has " nothing to relate that is certain or incontro- 
vertible ; for there are different accounts of his birth, his travels, his 
death, and especially of the laws and form of government which he 
established.*' 

The first difficulty which occurs to a modem biographer of Lycurgus 
is, how to select what may have a just claim to authenticity among 
the varying accounts of the age in which he flourished. Sir Isaac Difference 
Newton, in his " Chronology," 4 has placed him at the year 708 before chronology 
the Christian sera, chiefly relying on the testimony of " Socrates and 
Thucydides," who " made the institutions of Lycurgus about 300 
years older than the end of the Peloponnesian war." In this opinion 
Mr. West, in his learned "Dissertation on the Olympic Games," 5 
appears to coincide. It is also adopted by Dr. Priestley, in his "Chart 
of Biography."' though with some marks of uncertainty, and this 
is the date which we have thought proper to follow. Yet some able 
modem chronologers concur in receiving the authority of Aristotle and 
Strabo. Thus they consider Lycurgus as the contemporary and asso- 
ciate of Iphitus, and place the commencement of his legislation on his 
return from his travels, at about 884 years before the Christian aera. 
With this date a passage in Livy remarkably agrees, where, describing 
the submission of Lacedaemon to the Acheans, (189 years before 

1 Lib. i. Od. 7. 

2 In a speech which he ascribes to the Roman Consul, Tarentinis quid ex Spartana 
dura ilia et horrida disciplina mansiti L. xxxviii. c. 17. 

3 In the progress of Paulus ^milius through Greece, Inde Lacedcemonem adit ; 
non operum magnificent ia, sed disciplina institutisque memorabilem. L. xiv. c. 28. 

4 Page 36. 5 Sec. 11. 



140 



LYCURGUS. 



Christ), he represents the institutions of Lycurgus as having then sub- 
sisted 700 years. 1 

Sparta had long been governed by two kings of equal authority, 
the descendants of Eurysthenes and Procles, sons of Aristodemus, of 
the race of Heracles. Eunomus, the father of Lycurgus, was of the 
family of Procles. He lost his life in a popular commotion, leaving 
his share in the kingdom to Polydectes, the elder son, on whose 
decease, after a short reign, the royalty descended on Lycurgus. Yet 
he no sooner understood that the deceased king had left his widow in 
a state of pregnancy, than he declared that the regal authority would 
belong to her issue, should it prove a son, and in the meantime he 
administered the government under the title of Prodicos, by which the 
Lacedaemonians denominated the guardians of a minor king. 

The widowed queen, in whom ambition appears to have prevailed 
over moral sentiment and natural affection, now made to Lycurgus the 
inhuman proposal of procuring the destruction of the child, if he would 
promise to espouse her on thus succeeding to the royalty. He 
abhorred the suggestion, yet disguised his resentment, and persuaded 
the cruel mother, from a regard to her own life, to abandon the pre- 
sent destruction of her child, promising that he would take care to 
destroy it immediately on the birth. 
Birth of Having thus diverted the queen from her barbarous design, he gave 
Chaniaus. strict orders to her attendants, that if she were delivered of a girl, the 
child should be committed to the care of the women ; but, if of a boy, 
that he should be immediately brought into his presence, however he 
might be engaged. The infant, proving to be a son, was carried to 
Lycurgus, who was then at supper with the magistrates ; to whom 
he is reported to have said, " Spartans ! see here your new-born 
king !" naming him Charilaus, because of the joy and admiration of 
his own magnanimity and justice, testified by all present towards so 
faithful and disinterested a guardian. 

" Thus," says Plutarch, " the reign of Lycurgus lasted only eight 
days. But the citizens had a great veneration of him on other 
accounts ; and there were more that paid him their attentions, and 
were ready to execute his commands, out of regard to his virtues, than 
those that obeyed him as guardian of the king, and director of the 
administration." There were, however, some who opposed his ad- 
vancement, as too high for so young a man ; particularly the relations 
and friends of the queen-mother. He therefore took the resolution of 
travelling into other countries, till his nephew should be grown up 
and have a son to succeed him in the kingdom. The guardianship of 
the infant king was now probably assumed by Leonidas, brother of 
the queen, whose violent hostility to Lycurgus must have contributed 
to his resolution of becoming a voluntary exile. 

' Nulla tamen res tanto erat damno quam disciplina Lycurgi cui per septingentos 
annos assueverant, sublata. L. sxxviii. c. 84. 



LYCURGUS. 



141 



At this period of his life, when, as we have just learned from Travels o. 
Plutarch, he was still young, may be placed, with most probability, L y cur ^ us - 
his interview and co-operation with Iphitus, king of Elis. Mr. 
West says, "That prince may with great justice be styled the 
founder of the Olympic games, for he seems to have been the first 
that reduced that festival into a regular or coherent system or form ; 
united the sacred and political institutions ; and gave it, by the 
establishment of the Olympiad, that principle of life and duration that 
enabled it to outlive the laws and customs, the liberty, and almost 
the religion of Greece." 1 Plutarch claims for Lycurgus a share in this 
high reputation, and imputes to him the " providing for a cessation of 
arms during the Olympic games," as " a mark of the humane and 
peaceable man." Of his introduction to the king of Elis, he has 
borrowed from Hermippus and others the following marvellous account : 
" Lycurgus had no communication with Iphitus ; but coming that 
way, and happening to be a spectator, he heard behind him a human 
voice (as he thought), which expressed some wonder and displeasure 
that he did not put his countrymen upon resorting to so great an 
assembly. He turned round immediately to discover whence the 
voice came, and, as there was no man to be seen, concluded it was 
from heaven. He joined Iphitus, therefore, and ordering, along with 
him, the ceremonies of the festival, rendered it m ire magnificent and 
lasting." An Olympic discus, mentioned by Aristotle, on which was 
inscribed the name of Lycurgus, is supposed to confirm the opinion of 
his co-operation with Iphitus. 

The visit of Lycurgus to Crete is less disputed ; and there he To Crete, 
appears to have derived the largest assistance towards hisTuture plans 
of legislation for Sparta. Minos, the king of Crete, was famed for his 
jurisprudence ; and his laws, which he professed to have received from 
Jupiter, remained in vigorous exercise to the time of Plato, more than 
a thousand years after the death of the legislator. Here Lycurgus 
associated also with Thales, whom he persuaded to settle in Sparta. 
He was a poet, famed likewise for political wisdom, then generally 
recorded in traditionary verse, to which he procured the attention of 
the people by the attractions of his lyre. 

From Crete, Lycurgus passed into Asia Minor, 2 desirous to compare into Asia 
the Ionian expense and luxury with the Cretan frugality and hard diet. Minor ' 
There, in the reputed country of Homer, and amidst the scenes on 
which his genius had conferred immortality, he is reported to have dis- 
covered the entire poems of the bard, of which only a few detached 
pieces had been known in Greece. " Observing," says Plutarch, " that 
many moral sentences, and much political knowledge, were intermixed 
with his stories, which had an irresistible charm, he collected into 

1 West, Olympic Games, Feet. 11. 

2 AiZ,m, n Ti Szov fta,v<r£u/ro/u,a,t, r, a.v@gco<Tov' 
'AXP.' iti k«) y.ot.\Xov feov 'iXvrofACCs, u Avx'oo^yi. 

Herod, i. 63. 



142 



LYCURGUS. 



Travels of one body, and gladly transcribed them, in order to take them home 
Lycurgus,. -faim ; for his glorious poetry was not yet folly known in Greece, 

only some particular pieces were in a few hands, as they happened to be 
dispersed. Lycurgus was the first that made them generally known." 

The proverbial wisdom of the Egyptians scarcely failed to attract 
the attention of Lycurgus, who could not indulge his personal security 
from enemies at home without seeking to acquire among foreign states 
all the information which could enable him, on his return, to improve 
the institutions of his own country. Nothing, therefore, is more 
probable than the opinion, that during his travels, which appear to 
have extended through ten, or, probably, a greater number of years, he 
To Egypt, visited Egypt, to examine those remarkable laws and customs which 
were early celebrated among the nations of antiquity. " He was most 
pleased," says Plutarch, " with their distinguishing the military men 
from the rest of the people ;" a regulation which he is said to have 
adopted at Sparta, though it is not easy to comprehend what distinc- 
tion could exist among a people who, as to the free citizens, if they 
are correctly described, were all military. So indeed were many of 
the Helots, who accompanied their masters in battle, though their 
valour was frequently so ill requited. The accounts of the visits 
of Lycurgus to Libya and Spain, and his interview with the gymnoso- 
phists of India, appear to rest, according to his biographer, on insuffi- 
cient authority. 

His inquiries into the institutions of foreigners were, however, sud- 
denly terminated by the situation of his own country, probably long 
before the period which he had proposed for his return. This he had 
intended to defer till the infant king should have attained to manhood, 
and become a father, a period during which time might lessen the 
number of his enemies, and abate the rancour of those who survived. 
But here we must revert to the earlier history of Sparta. 

Laconia, of which that city was the capital, is said to have been 
repeopled about eleven hundred years before the Christian era, after 
having been reduced to a desert by the devastations of intestine wars. 
Two kings, the sons of Aristodemus, as before mentioned, then shared 
the regal authority. This divided rule, uncontrolled as it afterwards 
became by a senate, appears to have little promoted the public tran- 
quillity. The nominal authority, indeed, still descended in the two 
branches of the royal family, yet it was perpetually disputed, till at 
length that tumult occurred which proved fatal, as we have seen, to the 
father of Lycurgus. 

Previous to his departure from Sparta, he had administered the 
government only a few months, but in that time his abilities had 
become known to his fellow-citizens, who now, more sensible of his 
merit, sent deputations to him, in conjunction with the kings, to solicit 
home* 1 ^ s retum - ^ length Lycurgus detenuined to revisit his country, and, 
as the only remedy he could devise for the existing evils, to new-model 
the government. 



LYCURGUS. 



W6 



Influenced by the superstitions notions of his time, or rather, Consults the 
perhaps, by the policy of encouraging them, he deferred the execution S^phi!* 
of his great design till he had visited the far-famed oracle of Delphi. 
The Pythia, who was, no doubt, prepared for his reception, saluted 
him as beloved of the gods, and rather a god than a man. " So great 
was either the reputation of Lycurgus to command this testimony, or 
so great his art in procuring it," say the learned and accomplished 
writers of the Athenian Letters. 

Returning with this sanction from the oracle, he soon engaged in 
his design the principal citizens, of whom Arithmiades was his chief 
supporter. They agreed, to the number of twenty-eight, to assemble 
armed in the public square, lest any other citizens should oppose him. 
.None of this description appeared, and Lycurgus proceeded to accom- 
plish the suggestions of his extraordinary mind, aided by the lights 
which his travels had afforded him. 

He found the royal authority in the possession of Charilaus, his 
nephew, and Archelaus, who had both attained it by hereditary 
descent. But this authority was undefined, and frequently disputed, 
while the people passed by rapid transitions from the suffering of 
tyrannical oppression to the indulgence of licentious anarchy. Lycurgus 
now undertook to remedy both these evils, and to secure the liberty of 
the citizens, by tempering its exercise, while, by limbing the sovereign 
power, he consolidated and confirmed it. 

Archelaus does not appear to have resisted his projects, or to have 
-expressed any alarm ; but Charilaus, remarkable for the gentleness of 
his disposition, and still a youth, was terrified by the appearance of 
armed men, and apprehending a design against his person, took refuge 
in the Chalcoicos, or brazen temple of Athene ; but he was soon satis- 
fied, accepted their oath, and joined in the undertaking. 

Lycurgus next established a senate, consisting of twentv-eight mem- New models 
bers ; and nominated to that office those citizens who had been the first Government 
promoters of his design. Plutarch quotes the opinion of Aristotle that ° 
they were only twenty-eight, because two of Lycurgus's friends had 
deserted him through fear; though he himself concludes that this 
number was chosen, that, with the kings, the whole body might con- 
sist of thirty members. Of these, no one must be under the age of 
sixty years. This election, determined, according to Plutarch, by the 
shouts of the people, was for life ; and the senators were not respon- 
sible. Both these regulations are censured by Aristotle. He espe- 
cially considers it as prejudicial to the public weal, that those should 
continue to possess a control over their fellow-citizens who had 
survived their capacity of forming a wise and equitable decision. 
Plutarch applauds this establishment of a senate, as an intermediate 
body, which, " like ballast, kept the state in a just equilibrium ; the 
senators adhering to the kings whenever they saw the people too 
encroaching, and supporting the people whenever the kings attempted 
to make themselves absolute." 



144 



LYCUEGUS. 



Supported « Lycurgus," says Plutarch, " had this institution so much at heart, 
oracie^t that he obtained from Delphi an oracle in his behalf, called rhetra, or 
Delphi. the decree. This decree, which was couched in very uncommon 
terms, recognised the establishment of a senate of thirty persons, 
including the two kings. It also directed that the people should be 
occasionally summoned to an assembly between Babyca and Cnacion, 
and that they should have the determining voice." These boundaries 
are supposed to describe a spot where they held their assemblies, 
" having neither halls nor any kind of building for that purpose. 
Lycurgus thought these things of no advantage to their counsels, but 
rather a disservice ; as they distracted the attention, and tinned it upon 
trifles ; on observing the statues and pictures, the spendid roofs, and 
every other theatrical ornament. The people thus assembled had no 
right to propose any subject of debate, and w r ere only authorized to 
ratify or reject what might be proposed to them by the senate and the 
kings." 

Of these popular assemblies there were two descriptions. One, 
which was held once a month, and called the lesser assembly. This 
consisted exclusively of the citizens of Sparta. They decided on all 
questions respecting the regal succession ; the choice or removal of 
magistrates ; the punishment to be inflicted on public criminals ; and 
all important questions of internal policy or religious rites. The 
larger assembly comprehended, with the citizens of Sparta, the depu- 
ties from the cities of Laconia, and those of their allies, and even from 
any nations who came to implore their succour. In these assemblies 
of the people, no one was allowed to give an opinion till he had com- 
pleted his thirtieth year, and he might lose the privilege by miscon- 
duct. When any subject which engaged the attention of the assembly 
had been sufficiently discussed, one of the Ephori called for their voices, 
or ascertained their opinion by the numbers on a division. 
Ephori. Whether these magistrates, named the Ephori, w T ere established by 

Lycurgus, or appointed under the sanction of the oracle, more than a 
century after his time, is uncertain. Herodotus and Xenophon attri- 
bute their appointment to Lycurgus, while Plutarch, after Aristotle, 
places their institution 130 years later, in the reign of Theopompus, of 
whom it is related, that when his wife upbraided him that he would 
leave the regal power to his children less than he received it, replied, 
May, but greater, because more lasting. 

The Ephori were five in number, like the Quinqueviri at Carthage. 
They were annually chosen by the people, in their general assemblies, 
and designed to be a check on both the senate and the kings ; thus 
possessing a power not unlike the tribunitial authority in Kome. In 
the exercise of this power they were obliged to be unanimous. It was 
among the duties of the Ephori not only to preside in the assemblies 
of the people, and collect their suffrages, but also to proclaim war and 
negotiate peace ; to decide on the number of troops to be embodied, 
and to appoint the funds for their maintenance. They appear, indeed, 



LYCURGUS. 



145 



at length to have engrossed nearly the whole power in the administra- 
tion of the government ; yet, according to Herodotus, the kings still 
possessed an authority and distinction scarcely consistent with such a 
power in the Ephori. 

The priesthoods of the Lacedaemonian and celestial Zeus were 
assigned to the kings. They had the power also of making hostile 
expeditions wherever they pleased; nor might any Spartan obstruct 
them without incurring the curses of their religion. In the field of 
battle their post was in the front; when they retired, in the rear. 
They had one hundred chosen men as a guard for their person (three 
hundred according to others). When on their march, they might take 
for their own use as many sheep as they pleased, and had the chine 
and skin of all that were sacrificed. 1 Such were their privileges in 
war. In peace they had many distinctions. In the solemnity of any 
public sacrifice the first place was reserved for the kings, to whom not Privileges of 
only the choicest things were presented, but twice as much as to any |p^g ngs of 
other person. In the public games they sat in the most distinguished 
place, appointed the Proxeni (entertainers of ambassadors), and each 
of them chose two Pythii, who were sent to the oracle at Delphi, and 
maintained, like the kings, at the public expense. If the kings did 
not choose to take their repast in public, two chcenices of meal, with a 
cotyla of wine, were sent to their respective houses ; but if they were 
present they received a double portion. The oracular declarations 
were preserved by them, though the Pythias also must know them. 
The kings alone had the power of deciding in the following cases, and 
they decided these only. They chose an husband for an heiress, if her 
father had not previously betrothed her. They had the care of the 
public ways. Whoever chose to adopt a child must do it in the pre- 
sence of the kings. 2 Such were the honours paid by the Spartans to 
their princes, according to Herodotus ; who has here left some 
interesting traces of ancient manners, but whose account we shall find, 
on some points, at variance with the representations of Plutarch. 

Lycurgus, having established his new government, and defined the 
powers by which it should be administered, proceeded to the impor- 
tant objects which he considered as essential to its permanence. The 
first innovation on the existing forms of society at Sparta which he 
attempted, was a measure of extraordinary hazard, in which nothing 
could have encouraged or supported him but the reputation he had 
now acquired as a favourite of the oracular Apollo. 

" He found," says Plutarch, " a prodigious inequality ; the city Lycurgus 
overcharged with many indigent persons, who had no land, and the f ™f e e d s 
wealth centered in the hands of a few. These he persuaded to cancel property, 
all former divisions of land, and to make new ones in such a manner 
that they might be perfectly equal in their possessions and way of 
living. His proposal was adopted. He made nine thousand lots for 

1 See, On the h^arixov, or hide-money. Bceckh. Pub. Econ. Ath. iii. 7, p. 333. 

2 They likewise possessed extensive regal domains, and received frequent presents. 

[h. g.] l 



146 



LYCURGUS. 



the territoiy of Sparta, which he distributed among so many citizens, 
and thirty thousand for the inhabitants of the rest of Laconia. Each 
lot was capable of producing (one year with another) seventy bushels 
of grain for each man [as master of the family], and twelve for each 
woman, besides a quantity of wine and oil in proportion." A story 
goes of our legislator that, some time after, returning from a journey 
through the fields, just reaped, and seeing the shocks standing parallel 
and equal, he smiled, and said to some that were near him, " How like 
is Laconia to an estate newly divided among many brothers !" This 
journey has been attributed to the apprehensions of the legislator from 
the public odium which his innovations had excited. If the story is 
taken for granted, we must concede, what probably never yet happened 
in any district, that the fertility of the lands in Laconia, and their 
cultivation, were in exact proportion. We are also left vainly to con- 
jecture, how this equality of lands could be preserved, at the furthest, 
beyond one generation, considering the unequal increase of families ; 
and especially how there could be always one of the nine thousand 
shares, the reserve of which will presently be mentioned, as the portion 
of an infant who was deemed strong enough to be permitted to live. 
Colonization is the only expedient which has been suggested; but 
great inequalities would occur before this relief could operate. 

Lycurgus next projected an equalization of personal property ; " but," 
according to Plutarch, " he soon perceived that the people could not 
bear to have their goods directly taken from them, and therefore took 
another method. First he stopped the currency of the gold and silver 
coin, and ordered that they should make use of iron money only, 
iron and Then, to a great quantity and weight of this, he affixed a very small 
money, value ; so that to lay up ten mina (about thirty pounds sterling) a 
whole room was required ; and to remove it, nothing less than a yoke 
of oxen. He next excluded unprofitable and superfluous arts ; which, 
if he had not done, most of them would have fallen of themselves, 
when the new money took place, as the manufactures could not be 
disposed of." Plutarch adds, that their iron coin would not pass in 
the rest of Greece, but was ridiculed and despised. And, as the result 
of this contrivance of our lawgiver, he states, that " luxury, losing by 
degrees the means that cherished and supported it, died away of itself; 
when even they who had great possessions had no advantage from 
them, since they could not be displayed in public, but must lie useless 
in unregarded repositories." But, in his Laws and Customs of the 
Lacedcemonians, he says, that there was a law against covetousness, 
which made it a capital crime to amass gold or silver; for which 
several had been put to death. On this subject it is easy to discern 
the advantage the Spartans derived from having no money which 
would invite to their country " sophists, wandering fortune-tellers, 
or keepers of infamous houses ;" but there is nothing veiy agreeable in 
the account that they " had no means of purchasing any foreign or 
curious wares, nor did any merchant ship unlade in their harbours." 



LYCURGUS. 



147 



Another purpose of this iron coin, and, as some authors add, of 
leather money, was to discourage avarice, and the injustice of which 
it is so frequently the parent. This design was generally effected. 
Yet a striking exception occurred about a century after the time of 
Lycurgus, which deserves to be recorded : as nothing; brines more credit 
on anv institution than a view of the evils incurred by its violation. 
We refer to the story of Euaephnus the Lacedaemonian, as related by 
Pausanias. This unworthy Spartan, by the desire of wealth, was 
tempted to possess himself of the property of the Messenian Polychares, 
which the latter had entrusted to him, and afterwards to betray his too 
easy confidence by the murder of his son ; crimes which principally 
gave occasion to the first Messenian Avar, horrible and calamitous, 
though at length successful to Sparta. 

The next institution of Lycurgus was that of " public tables, where Pllblic 
all were to eat in common of the same meat, and such kinds as were repasts, 
appointed by law. They had not the privilege of eating at home, and 
so to come without appetite to the public repast ; and they made a 
point to observe ony one that did not eat and drink with them, and to 
reproach him as an intemperate and effeminate person who was sick 
of the common diet." When returning- home from the tables thev 
were forbidden to use a light, that they might be accustomed to march 
in the night without apprehension. At these public repasts, the plan 
of which Lycurgus appears to have borrowed from the institutions of 
Crete, there were about fifteen persons to a table. " Each was obliged 
to contribute monthly a bushel of meal, eight gallons of wine, five 
pounds of cheese, two pounds and a half of figs, and a little money to 
buy flesh and fish. If any of them happened to offer a sacrifice of 
first fruits, or to kill venison, he sent a part of it to the public table ; 
for after a sacrifice, or hunting, he was at liberty to sup at home, but 
the rest were to appear in the usual place." Plutarch adds, what 
cannot be easily reconciled with the account of Herodotus, w that when 
King Agis returned from a successful expedition against the Athenians, 
and from a desire to sup with his wife, requested to have his portion 
at home, the Polemarchs (chief men who distributed the commons) 
refused to send it." 

In these public halls there were distinct tables or messes, to winch a 
new member could only be admitted by ballot. The favourite dish of 
the Spartans was their black broth ; of its ingredients we have no very 
inviting description. Yet the old men were so fond of it, that they 
ranged themselves on one side, and ate it, leaving the meat to the 
young people. Plutarch relates of a king of Pontus, what he has also, 
as well as Cicero, ascribed to Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, that 
he purchased a Lacedaemonian cook for the sake of this broth. But 
when he came to taste it, he strongly expressed his dislike, and the 
cook made answer, Sir, to make this broth relish, it is necessary first to 
lathe, in the Eurotas; with which expression the Spartans connected 
Ifiibour and abstinence. 



148 



LYCURGUS. 



We can easily credit the information of Plutarch, that this institution 
of common repasts was peculiarly unacceptable to those who had 
enjoyed the distinctions of opulence. In this connection he has intro- 
duced an interesting story, too creditable to the conciliating talents of 
Lycurgus to be omitted in an account of his life. 
Assaulted by " The rich were more offended with this regulation than any other, 
Aicander. an( j ^sing in a body, they loudly expressed their indignation ; nay, 
they proceeded so far as to assault Lycurgus with stones, so that he 
was forced to fly from the assembly, and take refuge in a temple. 
Unhappily, however, before he reached it, a young man, named 
Aicander, hasty in his resentments, though not otherwise ill-tempered, 
came up with him, and, upon his turning round, struck out one of his 
eyes with a stick. Lycurgus then stopped short, and without giving 
way to passion, showed the people his eye beaten out, and his face 
streaming with blood. They were so struck with shame and sorrow 
at the sight that they surrendered Aicander to him, and conducted 
him home with the utmost expressions of regret. Lycurgus thanked 
them for their care of his person, and dismissed them all except 
Aicander. He took him into his house, but showed him no ill treat- 
ment, either by word or action, only ordering him to wait upon him 
instead of his usual attendants. The youth, who was of an ingenuous 
disposition, without murmuring, did as he was commanded. Living 
in this manner with Lycurgus, and having an opportunity to observe 
the mildness and goodness of his heart, his strict temperance, and 
indefatigable industry, he told his friends that Lycurgus was not that 
proud and severe man he had been taken for, but above all others 
gentle and engaging in his behaviour. This, then, was his chastise- 
ment, and this punishment he suffered ; and thus from a wild and head- 
strong young man, Aicander became a very modest and prudent citizen. 
In memory of his misfortune, Lycurgus built a temple to Minerva 
Optiletis, so called by him from a term which the Dorians use for the 
eye." Plutarch adds, from Dioscorides, that his eye was hurt, but 
not struck out, and that he built the temple in gratitude to the goddess 
for his cure. In memory of the accident, the Spartans never after- 
wards carried staves to their assemblies. 

By proscribing the currency of the precious metals, Lycurgus had 
rendered the indulgence of those luxuries which ingenious artists must 
supply scarcely attainable. As an additional guard against the propen- 
sity, he ordered, that " the ceilings of houses should be wrought with 
no tool but the axe, and the doors with nothing but the saw," taking 
it for granted that into such houses no one would introduce highly 
wrought and costly furniture. Plutarch, however, attributes to the 
Spartans excellent workmanship " in their useful and necessary fur- 
niture," and instances their " cup called cothon, which was highly 
valued, particularly in campaigns." But we must now inquire how 
the lawgiver of Sparta provided for more important objects. 

He encouraged marriage by setting a brand of disgrace upon celibacy. 



LYCUKGTJS. 



149 



The bachelors were liable to a prosecution, and obliged to appear Lycurgus 
naked in the public market, even in the winter season, and sing verses ^arria^e 63 
containing ridicule of themselves. They were likewise refused those 
honours to old age, which were in all other cases so scrupulously paid 
by the Spartans. On the other hand, those who married had many 
privileges, and if they had four children were free from taxes. Plutarch 
says, that " in their marriages, the bridegroom carried off the bride by 
violence, and she was never chosen in a tender age, but when she had 
arrived at full maturity." He proceeds to describe the circumstances 
attending the commerce of the sexes at Sparta, and affects to commend 
the lawgiver's gross expedient for preventing adultery, by encomaging 
a community of wives. 

Lycurgus considered children not so much the property of their Children 
parents as of the state. Under this notion he established the following ex P osed - 
severe regulation : — The father " was obliged to carry the child to a 
place called Lesche, to be examined by the most ancient men of the 
tribe, who were assembled there. If it was strong and well-pro- 
portioned, they gave orders for its education, and assigned it one of 
the nine thousand shares of land ; but if it was weakly and deformed, 
they ordered it to be thrown into the place called Apotheta, which is a 
deep cavern near the mountain Taygetus, concluding that its life could 
be no advantage either to itself or to the public, since nature had not 
given it at first any strength or goodness of constitution." How much 
wiser to have reflected, as observed in the " Athenian Letters," " that 
a weak constitution often settles into a state of health, and that nature 
sometimes makes amends for a feeble and deformed body by the 
strength and beauty of the understanding." 

As to the children who survived this ordeal, the parents were not Education, 
at liberty to educate them as they pleased. How the girls were 
initiated does not appear, except that they were taught " to exercise 
in running, wrestling, and throwing quoits and darts," and that 
Lycurgus " accustomed the virgins occasionally to be seen naked, as 
well as the young men, and to dance and sing in their presence, on 
certain festivals." Such is Plutarch's account ; and he is disposed to 
excuse, if not to commend this indecorous custom, which was, however, 
guarded by a law, which punished capitally the violation of a virgin's 
chastity. 1 

When a boy had passed the examination of the ancient men, and 

1 The learned author of Anacharsis (c. xlviii.) is also an apologist for this custom 
of occasional exposure, and claims for the female Spartans the praise of exemplary 
purity : " Les femmes de Lace'de'mone se distinguerent par la purete'de leurs moeurs." 
Bayle, on the other hand, in his article Lycurgue, says of this custom, "N'etoit-ce 
pas le moyen de les rendre devergondees ? Et se faut-il etonner apres cela, que les 
filles de Lacedemone aient ete en si mauvaise reputation." He adds, from the ancient 
writers, examples sufficiently numerous of the character which the Spartan matrons 
obtained and deserved, as being the most immodest women of all the Greeks. They 
had, however, the praise of being excellent nurses, and for this purpose were fre- 
quently employed in neighbouring countries. 



150 



LYCURGUS. 



was allowed to live, he was laid upon a buckler, and a spear placed 
within his reach, that his very first efforts might be warlike. The 
boys, at seven years of age, were enrolled in companies, where they 
were all kept under the same order and discipline, and had their 
exercises and recreations in common. He who showed the most con- 
duct and courage amongst them, was made captain of the company. 
The rest kept their eyes upon him, obeyed his orders, and bore with 
patience the punishments he inflicted. The old men were present at 
their diversions, and often suggested some occasion of dispute, or 
quarrel, that they might observe with exactness the spirit of each, and 
their firmness in battle. At twelve years of age their under-garment 
was taken away, and but one upper one a year was allowed them. 
Hence they were necessarily dirty in their persons, and not indulged 
in the great favour of baths and oils, except on some particular days of 
Community the year. They slept in companies, on beds made of the tops of 
of hfe. reeds, which they gathered with their own hands, without knives, and 
brought from the banks of the Eurotas. They were introduced to the 
public tables ; and when they first entered, the oldest man present 
pointed to the door, and said, Not a word spoken in this company goes 
out there. In the education of the Spartans, the higher branches of 
literature appear to have been excluded upon principle, as also were 
arts and sciences, except some attention to the art of design, probably 
for the purposes of war ; poetry, such as might consist with their 
habitual conciseness, and music, on an instrument, the form of which 
was limited by law. Thus Terpander, though he had the merit of 
setting the laws of Lycurgus to music, was severely reprimanded by 
the Ephori because he had added a string to the lyre. 

Among the Spartans was an instructor called Iren, who had left 
the class of boys two years, and was twenty years old. It was his 
Juvenile employment to improve the boys by conversation, and to draw out 
contests. those concise repartees for which the Spartans were celebrated, and 
which gave birth to the epithet laconic. The Iren also presided over 
the juvenile contests, which were designed to prepare the combatants 
for those perilous encounters which were their sole manly occupations. 
These contests were severe, and maintained with a perseverance of 
which history has furnished few, if any, adequate examples. 1 

It was also the business of the Iren to. inure the boys to hardships, 
and to encourage feats of craft and agility. These adventures have 
been, perhaps, improperly censured as thefts, which they could scarcely 
be called, when we consider the community, especially of subsistence, 
which prevailed in Sparta. Plutarch says that the Iren sends the 
eldest of the boys " to fetch wood, and the youngest to gather pot- 
herbs. These they steal where they can find them, either slily going 
into gardens, or else craftily and warily creeping to the common tables. 

1 They are thus described by Cicero (Tuscul. v. 77) : " Adolescentium greges 
Lacedsemone vidimus ipsi incredibili contentione certantes pugnis, calcibus, ungui- 
bus, morsu denique ut exanimarentur prius-quam se victos faterentur." 



LYCURGUS. 



151 



But if any one be caught, he is severely flogged for negligence or want 
of dexterity. The boys steal with so much caution, that one of them 
having conveyed a young fox under his garment, suffered the creature 
to tear oat his bowels with his teeth and claws, choosing rather to die 
than to be detected. So highly, indeed, was dexterity valued by the 
Spartans, that for a victory gained by valour they offered only a cock, 
but for one acquired by a stratagem, which spared the lives of their 
countrymen, they sacrificed an ox." 

Another severe discipline of the Spartan youth, by which " Laconia Spartan 
nursed her hardy sons to war," was also one of their religious rites, ^^"ty- 
performed at the altar of Artemis. Plutarch appears to have witnessed 
this celebration, and to have seen many of the youths " expire under 
the lash." In his Laws, &c. he thus describes the scene : — 

14 There was, indeed, a strange and unnatural custom annually 
observed at the celebration of the bloody rites of Artemis Orthia. A 
number of children, not only of the common, but of the higher class, 
were whipped, almost to death, with rods, before the altar of the 
goddess, their parents and relations standing by, and exhorting them to 
resolution in suffering. Though this barbarous ceremony lasted a 
whole day, yet they endured these severities with such extraordinary 
cheerfulness and resolution, as could not have been expected from 
the tenderness of their age. They did not express one sigh or groan 
during the solemnity. But, from an emulation of glory, they con- 
tended each to excel his companion in suffering the length and sharp- 
ness of his pains, and he who held out the longest was ever the most 
valued person among them." 1 

Though thus early trained to hardihood, the Spartans appear not to Admitted to 
have been admitted into military service till thirty years of age. For JjJjJ^f 
this service Lycurgus established various regulations. Their dress was 
scarlet, probably to hide the appalling spectacle of blood. They were 
never to march before the full moon, nor to fight often against the 
same enemies, lest they should thus teach them, though by severe ex- 
perience, the art of war. They slept all night in their armour, except 
the advanced guard, who were not allowed their shields, that they 
might depend solely on their vigilance. After every meal they sang 
hymns to their gods, who were always represented in armour, that 
every thing might foster the military spirit. The king, who com- 
manded the army, was attended by two Pythii, or augurs, with the 
Polemarchs, who formed a council of war, and he had an Olympic 
champion to fight by his side. On his departure from the city he 
offered a sacrifice to Zeus ; a youth took from the altar a flaming 
brand, and bore it, at the head of the troops, till they reached the 
frontiers, when the king offered another sacrifice. Just before the 
onset of battle he sacrificed to the Muses, that they might perform 
deeds worthy of praise. The troops then advanced to the sound of 

1 Well might Cicero say, as in the words immediately preceding the passage we 
lately quoted, " Pueri Spartiatae non ingemiscunt verberum dolore laniati." 



152 



LYCURGUS. 



flutes, and with chaplets on their heads, as if in anticipation of a victory, 
the king singing the pgean, or hymn of Castor, as a signal to engage. 
Courage of The Spartan wives and mothers encouraged their sons and husbands 
* omen ' to the fight, conjuring them to return, either with their shields or upon 
them ; never lamenting those who died in battle, but rather thanking 
the gods for the honour they entailed on their families. Those who 
fell in battle were buried in scarlet cloth, and had inscriptions on their 
tombs, which was not generally permitted. And that his Spartans 
might be familiarised with mortality, Lycurgus, contrary to the prac- 
tice of the Greeks, his contemporaries, directed their tombs to be built 
around their temples ; among which he is said to have built a temple 
to Laughter, and was at length honoured with one, which Sparta 
dedicated to her lawgiver. Whether, after all, Lycurgus was himself 
a soldier, it is impossible to determine. Plutarch has quoted two 
directly opposite testimonies ; one, that he " was a man of great 
personal valour, and an experienced commander," which is also the 
report of Xenophon; the other account is, "that he never had any 
military employment, and that there was the profoundest peace ima- 
ginable when he established the constitution of Sparta." 

There is one striking feature in the legislative system of Lycurgus, 
of which we have yet said nothing, but which well deserves to be con- 
Helots sidered ; we mean the case of the Helots. A maritime town of Laco- 
siave'ry' 1 l ° ma ' cane d Helos, was conquered, and the inhabitants were reduced to 
slavery by the Lacedaemonians, some ages before the time of our law- 
giver. From them all the slaves in Laconia are supposed to have been 
called Helots. 1 Plutarch certainly considers the domestic slaves as 
Helots, whom he describes as tempted, or rather forced, to intoxication, 
and then brought into the public halls, to deter the youths by their 
example. 

To these Helots, who were far more numerous than the free inha- 
bitants of Laconia, were appropriated all mechanic arts, and the culti- 
vation of their lands ; for the free Lacedaemonians, when not engaged 
in war, or preparing for it by martial exercises, claimed the privilege 
of idleness, which they accounted dignity. Plutarch, in his Laws, 
describes the Helots as " employed not only in all kinds of servile 
offices, but especially in tilling the fields, which were let out to them 
at reasonable rates." But, in his Life of Lycurgus, these Helots are 
repr r rented as the victims of most wanton cruelty. They were slaves 
not only of individuals but of the public. The youth massacred them 
in cold blood, to prepare themselves for the slaughter of foreign 
enemies ; and, lest they should become too numerous for the safety of 
the freemen of Laconia, they sallied forth in the evening to cut off great 
numbers of them as they returned home from reaping their harvests. 

1 The author of Anacharsis (c. xlii.) distinguishes them from those who were 
domestic slaves, and describes their condition as like that of the serfs or villeins 
under the feudal establishments. " lis tiennent plutot le milieu entre les esclaves 
et les hommes libres." 



LYCUKGUS. 



153 



This occasional destruction of the Helots appears to have been brought TheCryptia. 
into a regular system by the institution of the Cryptia y or ambuscade, 
which Plutarch describes, but is disposed to consider as an invention 
of much later date than the time of Lycurgus. Xenophon, however, 
attributes it to our lawgiver ; nor is it difficult to believe that he may 
be correct. Even in this enlightened country, negroes were scarcely 
allowed to be human beings, till that aera when Granville Sharp lived 
and laboured for their deliverance. Was it, then, extraordinary that 
Lycurgus, whose legislation, after all, was only a systematic barbarism, 
should have considered the Helots as brutes, whose lives might be 
sacrificed to any purpose which his policy required ? x 

How long Lycurgus remained in Sparta to superintend the practical 
application of his laws, and under what circumstances he finally left 
the country, are questions involved in the common uncertainty of his 
story. Plutarch describes him as living on good terms with his coun- Death of 
trymen, and highly gratified by the effect of his institutions. He repre- L y cur » us - 
sents him as pretending an occasion for visiting the oracle at Delphi, 
and obliging the Spartans, by an oath, to alter nothing till his return, 
which he never intended. He then, after an interview with the Pythia, 
is said to have put an end to his life by abstaining from food, at the 
age, according to Lucian, of eighty-five ; which must, in that case, 
have been after a long residence at Sparta; yet Plutarch evidently 
supposes him to have died in the prime of life. Tertullian, in his 
Apology, differs from Plutarch as to the retirement of Lycurgus. He 
twice alludes to the circumstance, 2 and attributes it to the determina- 
tion of the Spartans to mitigate the severity of his laws, on which 
he withdrew in disgust, and pined to death. These laws, which 
certainly discover a mind superior to the general information of his 
age, have been panegyrised in all times, though several of them need 
only a description to be justly censured. At best, they considered 
war rather than peace as the business of life ; and it has been well 
observed that Sparta flourished while she was in perpetual hostilities, 
but in the enjoyment of tranquillity presently decayed. As to their 
operation on domestic life, if women were not depressed in Sparta as 
in other countries, yet they were formed to roughen to the sense, and 
appear destitute of all that cheers and softens life. But, as to human 
nature in general, considering the great proportion of slaves in Laconia, 
how ill was that provided for by Lycurgus ! If we compare the two Lycurgus 
lawgivers who appeared in different ages, both learned in the wisdom JJ^^J 8 
of the Egyptians, and merely consider how one provided to mitigate 
the evils of bondage, and to maintain, in the commerce of the sexes, a 
decorum on which the other lawgiver seemed to have placed no value, 
we cannot avoid the conclusion that Lycurgus had only availed himself 
of the false pretensions of the Pythia, though with a laudable design, 

1 Yet he has found an able advocate in the author of Anacharsis, whose note to 
his sixty-seventh chapter the reader will do well to consult. 

2 C. iv. ilvi. 



154 



PHEIDON AND ARGOS. 



but that Moses had repaired to that only Oracle, which is neither the 
author nor the victim of delusion. 




Argos the 
centre of 
Doric rule. 



Plieidon the 
Temenid. 
B. C. 

770-750. 



Becomes 
despot of 
Corinth. 



Aims at the 
presidency of 
the Olympic 



PHEIDON AND ARGOS. 
B. c. 770—750. 

Though we have contemplated Sparta as the earliest portion of 
Hellas subject to historic evidence, we must not fall into the error of 
supposing it to be the earliest well-regulated power of Greece, simply 
because our authorities do not furnish us such minute details as are 
exhibited in the Lycurgean code : those authorities are rather deductive 
than direct — more general than special. The great centre of Dorian 
rule in the Peloponnesus was Argos, the metropolis of many con- 
federated inland settlements, which were independent cities colonized 
by her own population. No prominent historical fact, however, con- 
nected with individual ascendancy among this people, occurs before 
the time of Pheidon the Temenid, 1 between B.C. 770 and 750. 
Medon, the grandson of Temeneus, had gradually been straitened in 
his influence and prerogative, and, under the title of a monarchy, 
popular power had become nearly paramount. The energetic ability 
of Pheidon broke through the trammels that had for many years 
shackled the royal authority ; and he now re-established the ancient 
supremacy of Argos over her confederate and now subject towns. 

This enterprising chief next gained sway over Corinth, and with a 
view to the permanency of his rule, laid a treacherous snare for seizing 
upon one thousand of her chief citizens — a scheme only frustrated by 
Abron, a confidential friend, more faithful to public liberty than private 
interest. Not satisfied with claiming the sovereignty of Peloponnesus, 
as being a descendant of Heracles, he now advanced a title to preside 
at the celebrated games founded by his remote ancestor, especially the 
Olympic, a presidency which was both a dignified prize of ambitious 
headship, and exceedingly lucrative. The power of Pheidon, however, 
received a severe check from the rising vigour of Sparta. The Pisatans, 
who, together with the loss of their independence, had been deprived 

1 A descendant of Temeneus — according to Theopompus, the fifth in descent. 



PHEIDON AND ARGOS. 



155 



by the Eleans of their presidency over these celebrated games, invited 
the powerful aid of the despot of Argos to reinstate them in their pri- 
vileges. He acceded to their request, and as co-president headed, in Presides at 
conjunction with them, the games of the 8th Olympiad. This Olym- olympiad, 
piad, therefore, the Eleans, thus unceremoniously dislodged from their 
dignified post, refused to register, and invoking the armed interference 
of Sparta, Pheidon was defeated, the superintendence of the games 
reverted to Elis, and she was still further secured in her sway over 
Triphlyise and Pisatis. 1 




While the political talent of the great chief of Argos is evinced by 
his self-emancipation from democratic bondage, his commercial and 
financial activity are proved by his being the first to issue a coinage of 
silver and copper in the island of iEgina, accompanied by a scale of 
weights and measures ; 2 the adoption of which, throughout Pelopon- 
nesus, and subsequently in Thessaly, Bceotia, and Macedonia, demon- 
strates no inconsiderable commercial as well as political influence. 3 
The maritime vigour of Argos at this period must have been great ; 
her confederated towns embraced the whole coast-range of the Argolic 
and Saronic Gulfs, besides the Doric colonies of the ^Egean, the south- 
western angle of Asia Minor, including Cos, Rhodes, and various sea- 
board towns. We have no evidence stating the causes of the decay 
of Argive supremacy, nor the ultimate fate of Pheidon, whose statical 
and monetary scales demonstrate both the mental ingenuity of the 
prince and the commercial development of his people. There is every 
reason to believe that the almost impregnable position of Sparta, 4 her 
rigid military discipline, and ambition to seize the supremacy of 
southern Greece, led her by degrees to cripple the power of Argos, as 
she did that of Messenia and northern Arcadia. The spirit of Argos, 
however, even as late as b. c. 547, was not crushed. In that year she 
made a strong effort to recover Thyrea from the Spartans. A. memo- 
rable combat took place between three hundred select champions on 
each side, 5 while the main armies retired from the field. A conflict 
ensued so fierce and so equal, that of the six hundred warriors, only 

1 Strabo, viii. 354-358. 

2 Vide Boeckh, " Metrologische Untersuchungen iiber Gewichte, Munzfusse, und 
Masse des Alterthums," Berlin, 1838. 

3 &t!$MV9i rou ufigicrxvTos /Aiyurra, "hh 'EXXyv&iv o.rta.vruv. Herod, vi. 127. 

4 Vide Leake's Travels in the Morea, vol. iii. c. xxii. 5 Herod, i. 82. 



Commercial 
and financial 
activity of 
Pheidon. 



Statical and 
monet ary 
scales of 
Pheidon. 



The power of 

Argos 

declines. 



Combat of 
the three 
hundred 
champions. 



156 



SPARTAN MILITARY SYSTEM. 



three survived ; on the Spartan side Othryades — among the Argeians, 
Alcenor and Chromius. The victory was claimed by both nations, 
which led to a general battle in which the Argeians were defeated. 
This last conquest gave to Sparta an unbroken line of coast from the 
Nedon on the west of Peloponnesus to the north-eastern coast of 
Centralizing Thyreatis. The extent and population of the Spartan territory were 
Sparta^ 6 ° f ^ [ms grater than those of any state in Greece, while it carried out the 
principle of centralization in the most efficient manner known to any 
province of ancient Hellas. 



THE SPARTAN MILITARY SYSTEM. 



Training of 
the Spartans. 



Early 
military 
perfection of 
the Spartans. 



Spartan 
military 
system. 



Facility of 
manoeu- 
vring. 



As we shall shortly have to view the results of the Laconian disci- 
pline, in the conquest of Messenia, we shall here make a few observa- 
tions upon the military system of Sparta, the powerful engine of her 
ambition. 

The training of the Spartan citizen was not calculated like that of 
the Theban for gymnastic superiority alone, but for the more valuable 
quality of military endurance ; and when in after times we find Socrates 
declining the ample diet of the professed athlete, as requiring prodi- 
gious supplies to maintain a forced muscular development, and 
adhering to the patient hardihood of the true soldier, we have in his 
military training the most valuable eulogy on the Spartan system. 

We have the testimony of Aristotle to prove that at a time when the 
Greeks as a nation neglected gymnastic and warlike training, the 
Spartans had in perfection these two elements of their ultimate 
military ascendency. Though the arms of this warlike people were 
identical with the ordinary Greek heavy-armed soldier, one of the chief 
causes of their superiority over the Hellenic states in general lay in 
the length of their military service and the completeness of their drill. 
The enomoty or company, whose number varied from twenty-five to 
thirty-six men, headed by the Enomotarch or captain, the best soldier 
in its ranks, was not only drilled together to the most efficient evolu- 
tions, but its members were mutually bound to each other by an oath. 
When the company moved forward in single file its captain gave the 
order of march, at the same time leading off ; and should circumstances 
require the formation of several files, the Enomotarch took post on the 
front left; the front and rear rank of each file were men of tried 
valour. 1 The smallness of these En5moties gave a precision and 
rapidity in their practical handling by their officers, that communicated 
its virtue to the larger bodies which constituted their complete force. 
Their change from file to line marching, and their system of wheeling, 
so as to oppose their best men to the enemy, were brought to great 
perfection. In the ordinary drill, as in regular action, the charge 



Vide Muller, Hist. Dor. iii. 12, and Cragius, Repub. Laced, iv. 4. 



SPARTAN MILITARY SYSTEM. 



157 



step was regulated by the Dorian reed, so beautifully amplified by 
Milton — 

— — . Anon they move 

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood 
Of flutes and soft recorders ; such as raised 
To height of noblest temper heroes old 
Arming for battle, and instead of rage 
Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved 
With dread of death, to flight or foul retreat. 

The officers, who held rank above the Enomotarch, were the Pente- 
conter or commander of fifty ; the Lochagus, of twice that number ; 
the Polemarch, general over the Mora, equal to four Lochi or four 
hundred. 1 In times of necessity, as in the battle of Mantineia, 2 or 
when the military population was great, these divisions were enlarged 
to double or quadruple their complement, still retaining the original 
technical name. The cavalry of Sparta was a very inefficient force ; Spartan 
nor indeed was it one that was capable of being generally manoeuvred SlSSent. 
in the hilly country of Laconia ; nor had this arm of the service been 
contemplated in the system of Lycurgus : its inferiority, however, was 
never severely felt till the great struggle with Epameinondas. Such 
were the military institutes of the great Spartan lawgiver. 




1 Vide Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. appendix 3. 2 See Thueydides, v. 68. 



i 



158 



FIRST MESSENIAN WAR. 



Origin of 
Messenian 



Teleklus lays 
a snare for the 
Messenians : 



is slain. 



Lacedaemo- 
nians surprise 
Ampheia. 



Messenians 
take post at 
Ithome. 



The Delphic 

oracle 

consulted. 



Ithome 
abandoned. 



THE FIRST MESSENIAN WAR. 
B. c. 743 TO B. c. 723. 

The account of the first Messenian war is the earliest historical 
information we possess of the Messenians, the rivals of Spartan valour, 
though even here our authorities are often obscure or contradictory. 
The origin of the fierce conflict between these two brave people is as 
follows : — 

On the mountain territory, west of the highest ridge of Taygetus, 
stood the border temple common to the Lacedaemonians and Messe- 
nians dedicated to Artemis Limnatis. It is said that the Spartan king 
Teleklus laid here a treacherous snare for the Messenians, by disguising 
as virgins some young Spartans whom he armed with daggers, and 
with whom he attended the border sacrifice. A fierce conflict ensued, 
in which Teleklus was slain. Notwithstanding the death of the king 
war did not actually commence at that time, but it became inevitable 
in consequence of the violent dispute between the Spartan Euaephnus 
and the Messenian Polychares. The latter, finding his suit for redress 
rejected by the Spartans, avenged himself by indiscriminate aggressions 
upon several of his enemy's countrymen. The Lacedaemonians, with- 
out any declaration of war, surprising the frontier town of Ampheia, 
slaughtered the garrison, and, after sweeping the defenders from the 
open territory of Messenia, unsuccessfully attacked several of her 
towns. 

After four years of warfare, the Spartans had made but little pro- 
gress ; in the fifth a vigorous effort was attempted. Polydorus and 
Theopompus, their two kings, encountered the full force of the Messe- 
nians under the command of their prince Euphaes. The conflict, 
though desperate and indecisive, had the effect of so far enfeebling the 
Messenians as to compel them to take post on the fortified mountain 
of Ithome, and to leave undefended the more open districts of the 
country. The war had now continued thirteen years, when another 
fiercely contested battle was fought, distinguished by no decisive result 
except the death of the brave Euphaes. 

Aristodemus was elected his successor, and after five years of 
vigorous warfare vanquished the Lacedaemonians, and once more drove 
them to take shelter within their own frontiers. The Delphic oracle 
was now successfully consulted by the Spartans, and the manifestations 
of the Divine wrath were portentously displayed against the devoted 
nation of Messenia. For two years longer did this gallant people 
struggle with the disciplined bravery of their inveterate foe and the 
disheartening predictions of Apollo. Their devoted heroism, however, 
was in vain, and in the twentieth year of the war their stronghold of 
Ithome was abandoned as untenable, razed to the ground by the Lace- 
daemonians, and the remaining inhabitants completely reduced ; a few 
gallant spirits, who disdained submission, taking refuge in Eleusis or 
Arcadia. 



SECOND MESSENIAN WAR. 



159 



Tyrtaeus, the martial poet of Sparta, has drawn a most pitiable Description 
account of the absolute subjection of the Messenians at this period. by T y rtaeus ' 
" Worn down by intolerable burdens," he observes, " they were forced 
to surrender to their masters the entire moiety of their agricultural 
produce, and themselves and wives to attend personally at Sparta in 
the weeds of woe as mourners on the decease of their princes and 
chieftains." 



THE SECOND MESSENIAN WAR. 
b. c. 685 to b. c. 668. 
A yoke so galling to freemen was not to be tamely endured, and in Second 
the next generation Aristomenes, the great champion of Messenian v ^ eman 
freedom, stood forth as the leader of the second Messenian war. Three 
fierce engagements ensued in speedy succession; the first at Derae, 
with indecisive result ; the second at the Boar's Grave, in which the 
Messenians gained a glorious victory ; and the third which the treachery Treachery of 
of Aristocrates, the bribed ally of Sparta, turned into a disastrous Arist(>crates - 
defeat. 

Notwithstanding this defeat, Aristomenes with unparalleled daring, Aristo- 
at the head of his own band made incursions into the Spartan territory. def ' es 
Here he surprised two of their chief towns, and at midnight penetrated 
even the unfortified outline of Sparta itself, where, in the temple of 
Athene of the Brazen House, he suspended his shield as a bold 
defiance. His personal strength and valour were incredible. Thrice 
did the Messenian hero sacrifice to Zeus Ithomates, the Hecatompho- 
rica, the symbol of slaughter, by his own hands, of one hundred 
enemies ; thrice was he a prisoner ; in two instances effecting a mar- 
vellous escape ; in the third a more disastrous fate awaited him. 

The Ceadas, a rocky gulf in Mount Taygetus, was the horrible spot is precipi- 
into which the Spartans usually precipitated their criminals. Into this Jh^CeadMu 
terrible cavity fifty Messenians had been already cast : they perished ; 
he alone, miraculously supported by the favour of the gods, reached 
the bottom unhurt. Here in this horrible dungeon of nature he per- 
ceived only the sky above and the naked sides of the cavern sur- 
rounding him. But the great champion of Messenia was not to perish 
in gloom and loneliness. He had wrapped himself up in his cloak Escapes from 
resigned to death, when on the third day sounds of life saluted his the Ceadas!' 
ears. He observed a fox creeping amongst the dead bodies ; watching 
his opportunity he seized the animal by the tail, and led by this sin- 
gular guide, he was enabled to find the aperture by which the creature 
had entered. With much difficulty he enlarged the opening, and once 
more emerged to light ; and to the great surprise of both friends and 
enemies, he appeared again in full vigour at Eira. The relation of the 
numerous exploits and daring adventures of this invincible chief might 
be greatly extended ; he totally destroyed a Corinthian army on its Destroys a 
march to join the Spartans; he subsequently fell into an ambush of£r" e " thian 
Cretan bowmen in Spartan pay, but again burst his bonds through the 



160 



SECOND MESSENIAN WAR. 



Decision of 
the oracle. 



Aristomenes 
disabled. 



The Spartans 
surprise Eira. 



Theocl us 
perishes. 



End of the 
second 
Messenian 
war. 

b.c. 668. 



Aristomenes 
dies at 
Rhodes. 



The Perioeci. 



instrumentality of female compassion. He rewarded the maiden for 
this generous action by bestowing on her the hand of his son Gorgus. 
At length the eleventh year of the siege of Eira arrived ; it proved the 
term of Messenian independence, for the oracle had said that " when 
a goat should drink of the water of the Neda, the destruction of Mes- 
senia should be near at hand." A wild fig-tree (in the dialect of 
Messenia, signifying a goat also,) overhung the stream, and now at 
length its boughs stretched down to the water. Thus warned, 
Theoclus the seer pronounced the oracle accomplished. Unfortunately, 
at this crisis of his country's fortune, Aristomenes was incapacitated 
by a wound from making his usual exertions ; the discipline of the 
garrison had greatly relaxed, and the roughness of the weather induced 
the sentinels to leave their posts and seek shelter. Under the guidance 
of a traitor the Spartans now scaled the walls ; though surprised, the 
inhabitants still contested every inch of ground ; the combat was fierce 
and obstinate in the extreme, even the women armed themselves and 
fought amongst the men. For three days and nights, with the rain 
falling in torrents, the thunder pealing around them, and the lightning 
flashing in their eyes, they maintained the desperate struggle. Theoclus, 
the Messenian seer, now bade Aristomenes preserve the relics of his 
band, and rushing into the thickest of the conflict fell amidst heaps of 
slain. Aristomenes formed his warriors into a hollow square, in 
which the Messenians placing their wives and children, forced a pas- 
sage through the ranks of the foe, and effected a safe retreat to Arcadia, 
where they were hospitably received. Thus in the first year of the 
twenty-eighth Olympiad (b.c. 668), the second Messenian war termi- 
nated in the complete subjugation of this gallant people. Manticlus 
and Gorgus, the sons of Aristomenes, sailed to the city of Rhegium 
on the Italo-Sicilian Straits, where they found some of their country- 
men who had settled there at the close of the former war. Aristo- 
menes himelf died peacefully at Rhodes in the house of his son-in-law 
Domagetus : here a noble monument was raised to his memory, and 
his posterity became the most illustrious family in the island. 

A conquest so important could hardly have been effected by the 
unaided energies of the Spartans alone. They in all probability 
received valuable assistance from states early subjected to the Dorian 
sway over Peloponnesus. Such a policy was always acted upon by 
the Romans; and it is evidenced in the 
case of the Perioeci, in the Peloponnesus, 
who date their origin from the Dorian con- 
quest of the Achaians, the old inhabitants 
of the country. The Perioeci served in the 
Spartan armies, and they themselves occu- 
pied the maritime towns, and exclusively 
carried on the trade and manufactures of the country. In after times 
many of them became distinguished artists. 1 

1 Miiller, Dor. iii. 2, s. 3. 




CORINTH. 



161 



Soon after the final subjugation of Messenia, we observe simultaneous simultaneous 
political phenomena, operating throughout Hellas, with the exception Hellenic* 
of Sparta, viz., the rapid rise and fall of despots or despotic dynasties, government, 
and the decay of the once-venerated Homeric kingships. A political ^ m ^ r . atic 
problem, so general and so especially applied to the maritime parts of Greecl from 
Hellas and her colonies, is solved by the vast mercantile development b. c. 
of this period, productive at once of great wealth to the merchant, the 650-500. 
future despot, and of free ideas to the mercantile population; ideas 
gradually penetrating to states more inland. This sera of change ranges 
from b. c. 650 to 500, by which time the general democratic feeling 
had become strong in Greece. 



CORINTH. 
b. c. 650 to b. c. 585. 

The noble maritime position of Corinth rendered her peculiarly 
liable to innovations. Here the dynasty of the Bacchiads 1 was over- The 
thrown by Cypselus, b. c. 650. This chief was of an opulent and overthrown 
ancient family, tracing his descent through the iEolian nobility. With by Cypselus. 
the real history of Cypselus, we have not yet shaken off legend ; for we 
find his lineage carried up to Cceneus, a king of the Lapithae ; and the 
oracle again plays a prominent part in the tale of the ancestor of 
Cypselus, Melas, who was the attendant of the first Dorian chief 
Aletes, the head of the original settlers at Corinth. This colonist was Melas is 
warned by an oracle to refuse admittance to Melas, and its prophetic SoracS 
voice was again heard, immediately before the birth of Cypselus. 
The Bacchidae were warned that his mother was about to give birth 
to an infant who should prove formidable to the ruling power. The 
emissaries whom the Bacchidae despatched to murder the infant spared Cypselus 
its life ; a second attempt was made, but by this time his mother had from^eath. 
concealed him in a chest (kupselos) whence his name. 2 We may now 
return to history, which informs us, that afrer growing up to manhood, 
he became the champion of the democracy, by whose aid he first expelled 




the Bacchidae, and then established himself as tyrant. By means of b. c. 
those popular qualities by which he had obtained the supremacy, he 655-625. 
1 The descendants of Bacchis, the first king of their race. 

' l These post-fictitious names were usual with the Greek. Compare the case oi 
(Edipus (Oilivrov;, or Swell-foot.) 

[II. G.J M 



162 



CORINTH. 



continued, for the space of thirty years, to maintain his sway in 

Corinth, nor had he ever any occasion for the usual body-guard of the 
Stics a onTi9 ^ ree ^ despots. 1 His rule was distinguished by the costly works of 
reign. art, with which he adorned various Grecian temples, particularly that 

of Olympia, in which he erected, and dedicated to Zeus a statue of 

pure gold. 2 

On the death of Cypselus, b. c. 625, his son Periander succeeded to 
tor nt IcJou"nts tnrone « As in the case of his father, the historical notices we have 
of Periander. received of Periander are very contradictory ; hence, we may fairly 
infer, that party spirit must have run high during his government. By 
one class of writers his character is drawn in the darkest colours, and 
tales of a revolting domestic nature are related of him ; by others he is 
Fond of the distinguished as a warrior, a patron of poetry and music, and he is even 
included in the number of the seven wise men of Greece. Still there 
is no feature of his character, recorded by his most partial historians, 
incompatible with the dark traits of inhumanity, cruelty, and oppres- 
sion ; characteristics not unfrequently attending martial vigour and a 
taste for the fine arts. He kept on foot a powerful body-guard, and 
many of his exactions were appropriated to votive offerings at Olympia. 
The chief incidents in his career which may be most relied upon are his 
quarrel with his son Lycophron, and his barbarous treatment of a 
number of noble youths of Corcyra. Periander had married Melissa, 
the daughter of Procles, the Epidaurian despot. This princess Periander 
put to death, and his son, deeply exasperated, conceived an antipathy 
to his father, not to be overcome by mildness nor severity. After 
many efforts to conquer this feeling, but without success, Lycophron 
was sent to the island of Corcyra. Soon after, desirous to continue his 
dynasty, Periander invited him to return to Corinth ; but the obstinacy 
of the son and the anxiety of the father were rendered alike unavailing 
by the murder of Lycophron by the Corcyrseans. Periander, enraged 
at this atrocity, avenged himself by seizing on three hundred of their 
most noble youths, whom he sent over to Alyattes, the king of Lydia, 
at Sardis, that they might be reduced to worse than perpetual bondage. 
Happily, they were rescued from this terrible fate by the Samians, at 
whose island the Corinthian vessels had touched ; and soon after the 
death of Periander they returned to their native country. The con- 
tradictory notices of Periander, transmitted to us by history, or rather 
by faction, however varying in themselves, yet, collaterally, demon- 
strate the existence of a state of society wealthy, prosperous, and 
enterprising in the highest degree. Whatever may have been the 
individual acts of tyranny committed by the despot, it is clear that 
his people generally had imbibed the true spirit of commerce, which 

1 Polycen., v. 31 ; Aristot. Pol. v. 9. 

2 A Corinthian orator in Herodotus describes Cypselus as a cruel tyrant, who 
robbed and murdered his people, numbers of whom he banished, taking from the 
Corinthians the whole of their property in taxation. Herod, v. 92. See also 
Pseud. Arist. (Econom. ii. 2. 



CORINTH. 



163 



they embodied in the most energetic action. A power so important B. c. 585. 
as this would never permit an indiscriminate despotism. We may, 
therefore, presume that a tacit agreement may have subsisted, on the 
one hand, to submit to the sway of a magnificent and occasionally cruel 
tyranny, and on the other not to interfere with the great mercantile 
energies of the Corinthian people. 

The power of the Corinthian state under the sway of Periander 
appears to have been very extensive, embracing Leucas, Anactorium, 
Ambracia, Corcyra, and other possessions. The dynasty of the Cypse- 
lids, of which the last member was Psammetichus, the son of Gordius, 
continued seventy-three years, of which the reign of Periander lasted 
forty, B.C. 625-585. 




m 2 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ATHENS AND OTHER GREEK STATES, FROM THE TIME OF CODRUS 
TO THE IONIC REVOLT.— b. c. 500. 



THE LEGEND OF CODRUS. 

Legend of Although the life of Codrus is as mythical as any of the preceding 
fistoricised. legends, the continued attempts of the Greek historians have so stripped 
it of its wild proportions, and vested it with such a species of regu- 
larity, as to make it appear somewhat inconsistent with the scope and 
tendency of the previous myths. This, therefore, is one of those cases 
in which subsequent history appears so closely connected with pre- 
vious legend, that an entire separation is a matter of considerable diffi- 
culty. As the Ionic emigration stands immediately in connection with 
Codrus and his family, this at once draws in its train a quasi-historical 
narrative. The proportion of truth mixed with fable is, at this distance 
of time, difficult to determine. We shall, therefore, present to the 
reader's notice the semi-historical narrative, modified by successive 
writers who have been desirous of giving dignity to the kingly founder 
of the Attic state, and the parent of the great Ionic emigrants. 
Kings of Kings of Athens after Theseus. — Menestheus, who succeeded 
The2e n us! fter Theseus on the throne of Athens, advocated a better title to that 



LEGEND OF CODEUS. 



165 



honour than his predecessor, having been the descendant of Erech- 
theus, one of its oldest kings. This monarch, finding himself firmly 
seated in the kingdom, after the death of Theseus, joined in the 
Grecian confederacy against Troy, and, accompanied by his brother 
Achamus, led fifty ships, and a proportionate land force, to join 
the attack of Agamemnon and Menelaus upon that devoted town. 
Under the walls of Troy Menestheus fell, and is scarcely noticed 
by historians, amidst the heaps of slain in that memorable conquest ; 
although the duration of his reign over Athens has been pretty 
generally fixed at twenty-four years. At his death we find De- 
mophodn, the son of Theseus by Phaedra, restoring the line of that 
monarch to the Athenian throne. To Demophoon is attributed, 
by some writers, the honour of having first established the famous 
court of the Ephetae, which consisted of fifty Athenians and as many 
Argives ; continuing in that form until it was remodelled by Draco. 
To this tribunal was awarded the power of trying murders and all court of the 
capital offences ; and a singular act of justice is recorded of its founder. Ephetae. 
Having accidentally killed one of his subjects, as he was riding under 
the walls of Troy, he submitted to be tried by this court for the 
offence, and the issue only appears from the circumstance of Demo- 
phoon having reigned in tranquillity thirty-three years afterwards, and 
leaving the undisturbed possession of the kingdom to his son. 

Of this son, whose name was Oxyntes, nothing is recorded, but that 
he held the sceptre twelve years, and left it to Aphydas, a prince who 
was assassinated, in the first year of his reign, by his illegitimate 
brother Thymaetes. In the eighth year of the reign of Thymaetes, the 
Athenians being at war with the Boeotians, it was resolved that the 
two kings of the contending nations should decide the difference by 
single combat, to which Xanthus, the Boeotian sovereign, readily 
acceded, but Thymaetes declined the contest. Melanthius, however, Melanthius. 
a noble Messenian, eagerly accepted the office of champion on behalf 
of the nation, and the combatants entered the lists. The Athenian 
cause proved victorious by the stratagem of Melanthius, and the con- 
queror being now elected to the throne of Athens, a feast was insti- 
tuted in commemoration of the victory, which the Athenians entitled 
Apaturia. Of the deposed Thymaetes we hear no more. Melanthius 
seems to have held the government with a firm and a judicious hand 
for thirty-seven years, and was the father of the brave and patriotic 
Codrus. 

CODRUS. 

Although the records of this monarch do not particularise many of Codrus. 
his actions, it is clear, from the general tone of history, that his ad- 
vancement to the throne may be considered as an important epoch in 
the civilization of his people, while the manner of his death throws the 
greatest splendour around his name. 

The Heracleidae (the descendants of Heracles) and the Dores, their 



166 



CODRUS. 



confederates, in the twenty-first year of the reign of Codrus, had 
made an irruption into Attica. The Athenian forces, led by their 
king, marched to meet the enemy, and the invaders having consulted 
Oracle the Delphic oracle respecting its success, the reply was, " that they 
respecting fo e victorious, if they avoided slaying the Athenian king." 

Every precaution which human prudence could suggest was taken to 
prevent such an accident ; but Codrus, being informed of the oracle, 
in a spirit which that age deemed magnanimous, determined to sacrifice 
his own life to the cause of his country. Disguised, therefore, in the 
habit of a peasant, and, eluding the observation of his own troops, he 
penetrated to the camp of the enemy. Here he purposely provoked 
a quarrel with some private soldiers, and fell a sacrifice to the safety 
and glory of Athens. The tidings of his death reaching the Athenian 
camp on the following day, an embassy was despatched to the enemy 
demanding the body of their king. The invaders, panic-struck at the 
remembrance of the oracle, broke up their camp in fear, and retired 
from Attica without striking a single blow. 

With the death of this gallant monarch ended the regal sovereignty 
of Athens, which, between the reign of Cecrops and that of Codrus, 
is stated to have extended over a period of nearly five hundred years. 
History of On the principle of high veneration for the memory of Codrus, the 
his family. Athenians are sa [^ to have made an express declaration that they 
deemed none worthy to bear the title of king after him, and thus arose 
the government of the Archons ; a title which they first conferred on 
The Archons. Medon, the eldest son of Codrus. But the election of Medon being 
opposed by his brother Neileus, on the plea of his intellectual incompe- 
tency, and from his lameness, the Athenians applied to the oracle, 
which confirmed the title of the elder son, who, in consequence, 
enjoyed the chief magistracy for his own life, and transmitted it to his 
heirs for twelve generations : the Archontes derived from Medon were 
commonly known in history by the name of the Medontidas. 
Attic The population of Attica had now very considerably increased, and 

Fncreases 11 man y °f * ne superior families being admirers and supporters of 
Neileus, a younger son of Codrus, the brothers placed themselves at the 
head of considerable bands of the Athenians, and formed various set- 
tlements in the neighbourhood. To these adventurers have been 
attributed the founding and peopling of twelve cities of Ionia, on the 
coast of Lesser Asia — Ephesus, Miletus, Priene, Colophon, Myus, 
Teos, Lebedos, Clazomenae, Erythrse, Phocasa, Chios (situated in an 
island), and Samos ; at first governed each by its separate king, but 
afterwards united into one state, which attained considerable celebrity. 
In the mean time the Medontidae enjoyed their dignity in undisturbed 
succession, until the archonship of Alcmon, or Alcmaeon, the son of 
iEschylus, who died after having exercised his office only two years. 
Archonship The Athenians were now ambitious of strengthening the democratic 
elective. p ar ^ Q £ faelr constitution, by limiting the duration of the archonship 
to ten years, and subsequently a still further alteration was made in 



IONIC EMIGRATION. 



167 



favour of the people, who declared the office in future to be elective 
and annual. Hippomenes, the last of the line of Codrus, is said to 
have been deposed for his cruelty to his own family, having had his 
son torn to pieces by wild horses, and his daughter stoned to death. 



THE IONIC EMIGRATION. 

On the death of Codrus, his two sons, Medon and Neileus, having Emigration 
quarrelled about the succession, the latter resolved on emigrating. In of Neileus - 
his resolution he was confirmed by the decision of the Delphic oracle, 
which assigned the throne to Medon. Under the guidance of several 
members of the Codrid family, headed by Neileus, the memorable 
Ionic emigration sailed forth to the shores of Asia Minor. In this 
extensive movement, not only did the Ionians recently driven from the Components 
Peloponnesus join, but the unsettled population which had been for a l^i&gtiMi 
considerable time crowding towards Attica increased its numbers ; 
while many distinct races, such as the legendary Cadmeians, the 
Abantes of Eubcea, the Boeotians, and the Arcadian Pelasgians, helped 
to swell the vast moving throng who now sought to settle on more 
prosperous lands. 

This great occidental confluence of various races, and the facility Early 
with which such large bodies were transported across the iEgsean, ""Jj 1 ^ 
demonstrate alike the unsettled state of the Hellenic race and the early Athens, 
maritime ascendancy of Athens. She colonized the Cyclades, the 
islands of Chios, Samos, and ten important cities on the Asiatic coast, 
ranging from Phocaea on the north to Miletus on the south. Lycian 
chiefs, also, the descendants of Glaucus and other princes celebrated in 
Homeric song, were distinguished leaders in this enterprise. These 
settlements, however, were not always of a peaceful nature, the Carians 
and Leleges, who then inhabited a considerable part of the coast, being 
expelled with much slaughter. 

The twelve colonies thus formed were Samos, Chios, Miletus, Priene, Twelve 
Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Erythrse, Clazomense, and Phocsea. founded. 
• Miletus, the position chosen by Neileus himself, of all these settle- 
ments laid claim to the purest Ionic blood. Here the followers of the 
Athenian prince slaughtered all the males whom they found, com- 
pelling the women to become their wives, an action which these females Settlement 
treasured up as a bitter legacy to their daughters, whom they bound by of Mlletus * 
oaths never to share their meals with their husbands, nor salute them 
by their names. In the state of society then subsisting, the cruel 
onslaught of these invaders appeared an honourable action, nor was it 
reprobated by Isocrates, who afterwards, even in the prime of Gre- Opinion of 
cian civilization, applauds his Athenian ancestors for having by this JU^Jf - 
emigration provided a home for his countrymen at the expense of colonization 
barbarians. ' ° lMm "°- 

Prior to the settlement of Miletus, Ephesus, and Colophon, the 
worship of Apollo Didymaeus existed among the Asiatic population of 



168 



TONIC EMIGRATION. 



Advan- 
tageous 
position of 
the Ionic 
towns. 



A ndroclus 
founder of 
Ephesus. 



His descend- 
ants retain 
the priest- 
hood. 



Ionic 

settlements 
gradual. 

Importance 
of Miletus. 



Trade by 
land and sea. 



Commercial 
enterprise of 
Phocaea. 



these towns, and the continuance of the local rites harmonized with 
the feelings of the Greeks, by whose energetic superintendence they 
derived increased renown. Miletus, Priene, and Myus being situated 
near the river Mseander, and Ephesus adjoining the embouch ure of the 
Caister, the advantages of such a valuable communication with the 
interior gave a most rapid development to their nascent prosperity ; 
whilst, together with the neighbouring island of Samos, they exercised 
at an early period the chief influence in the Pan-Ionic Amphictyony, 
who held their meetings on the north side of the promontory of 
Mycale, at the temple of Poseidon. 

The chief founder of Ephesus was Androclus, who, after lingering 
on the isle of Samos, received at length an oracular intimation to 
colonize part of the hill of Coressus, at the fountain of Hypelaeon, near 
the temple of Artemis; and so rapidly 
did the resources of Androclus increase 
that he soon effected the conquest of 
Samos, expelling from that island Leo- 
gorus, its prince. After various fortunes, 
however, Androclus perished in a fierce 
conflict fought in defence of Priene, and 
his dead body, being brought from the 
field of battle, was buried near the gates 
of Ephesus. Soon after his death, a 
revolt broke out against his sons, and 
the popular party, aided by reinforce- 
ments from Teos, established a repub- 
lican government, permitting the descendants of Androclus to retain 
the hereditary priesthood of the Eleusinian Demeter. 

Though the legendary grouping of the Ionic emigration points alone 
to one grand political movement of that enterprising offshoot of the 
Hellenic race, its historical analogies lead us to consider the effects 
produced as the results of distinct and successive settlements, gradually 
blending with Lyclians and Carians. The whole Ionic sea-board was 
at the height of prosperity between 700 and 500 B.C., when the com- 
mercial splendour of Miletus almost rivalled that of Tyre and Carthage. 
Her trade by sea was principally carried on in the Euxine and the Palus 
Masotis, whose shores were studded with her colonies, by means of 
which she monopolised the northern trade in slaves, dry fish, pulse, 
and furs. Her land trade flourished by the great military road con- 
structed by the Persians into the heart of Asia, whilst so great was 
the expansion of her naval power, that four harbours scarcely sufficed 
to contain the mercantile and warlike armaments which left her 
coasts. 

Contemporaneous with this magnificent period of her prosperity, 
Phocsea carried her commercial enterprise to the west as vigorously as 
did the Milesians towards the north. Her navigation stretched to 
Gades, and her commercial spirit founded colonies in Italy, Corsica, 




IONIC EMIGRATION. 



169 




and Gaul. On the rise of the Persian dominion, 540 B.C., this 
spirited people, rather than succumb to the yoke of Persia, forsook the 
land of their fathers and migrated to Corsica. 

Under the sway of Polycrates, 540-523 B.C., Samos was distin- 
guished by its trade and naval power. A century subsequent to the 
former date we find Samos 
dependent upon Athens, 
which, together with the 
introduction of a democratic 
government, made this the 
grand rendezvous for her 
fleets and troops during her 
war with Sparta. 

But we must not only contemplate with admiration the vast com- 
mercial energy developed by these colonies of Hellas, we shall also 
be deeply impressed by the noble spirit of brotherhood which animated 
their vigorous maturity. The central festival of Delos was the grand 
theatre where the Ionic race, both continental and insular, assembled 
to foster those feelings of kindred which were so deeply felt by the 
mother state and her children. From 660-560 B.C. this festival was 
at its greatest height, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo presents us 
with a most imposing description of that great solemnity, in which 
both Peisistratus of Athens, and Polycrates of Samos, took a deep 
interest. 

For the concluding history of this great commercial community, the 
reader is referred to " The Ionic Revolt," the term of the independence 
of the Asiatic Greeks. 



The 

Phocaeans 
emigrate to 
Corsica. 

Samos and 
its political 
position. 



Grand Ionic 
festival of 
Delos. 



At its height 

b. c. 660- 
560. 



170 



DRACO. 




DRACO. 

FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 621. 

B. c. 621. The early history of Attica, like that of the other Grecian States, is 
involved to such an extent in fable, that it is difficult to select any 
ancient narration on which a reader may, with confidence, rely. So 
numerous, indeed, and contradictory, are the marvels recounted con- 
cerning the founders and restorers of these states, in respect and in pro- 
portion to their subsequent consequence and splendour, that we can 
hardly repress our incredulity as to the simplest facts that are related 
concerning them. 

We have had occasion repeatedly to notice these disadvantages in 
the study of ancient history ; and with regard to Athens, from the age 
of Theseus to the period at which we are now arrived, six centuries 
elapsed, whose records furnish us but with the single name of Codrus 
as a subject of biography ; and of his life, as we have seen, the mate- 
rials are few. 

Nine archona On the close of the archonship of Eryxias, and some time after the 
appointed, feafa f Hippomenes, the last of the Medontidse, the people having 
made the office of archon elective and annual, nominated nine of the 
richest citizens to the chief magistracy, and assigned to each his pecu- 
liar duties. The title of Archon was confined to the first of these 
magistrates, and the year in which he was chosen was distinguished 
by his name ; the second was honoured, with the title of Basileus, or 
king, and had his distinct tribunal for the administration of justice; 
the third was called Polemarchos, and his chief occupation was the 
management of the military affairs of the country ; the six remaining 
archontes were called indiscriminately Thesmothetae. 

From the commencement of the Athenian republic, it is worthy of 
remark, that although both the nobles and the people joined in the 
wish to limit the powers of their rulers, yet there existed a contention 
between themselves for power and authority ; which, indeed, though 
Right of always fluctuating, was not unequally divided. For the right of elect- 
l^chonte? 6 in S tne su P reme magistrates, the archontes, was settled in the people; 

but it was from amongst the nobility alone that these officers could be 
chosen. The first of the nobles who exercised this office, under the 
new limitations, was Creon ; to him succeeded Tlesias ; then Lysias ; 



DRACO. 



171 



Antosthenes ; Archimedes ; Miltiad.es : Dropis ; Damasias ; Epce- Draco, 
netus ; and lastly, the celebrated lawgiver, Draco, the subject of our 
immediate inquiries. 

Of Draco's early life nothing is recorded, and the year of his acces- 
sion to the archonship is a point of considerable uncertainty; of his 
after progress to fame, and even of his institutions, very few particulars 
remain scattered through various authorities, among "which we are 
chiefly indebted to Pausanias. Some authors place his archonship in 
the second, while others refer it to the thirtv-ninth Olympiad. The 
commencement of his legislation is now, however, generally placed at 
the year 621 before the Christian sera, when he appears to have been B. c. 621. 
considerably advanced in age. 

Under the different sovereigns of Attica there were probably many Obscurities 
attempts to legislate ; but it does not appear that there were any laws history™ S 
in a connected form till the time of Draco, when the flourishing state 
of Sparta might awaken the Athenians to a sense of the value of a 
regular legislation. According to Demosthenes (who mentions a law 
of Theseus engraven on stone), till Draco compiled and framed a regu- 
lar code, neither the aiminahty nor punishment of any action had been 
distinctly defined. 

The precise nature of the institutions of Draco, though they have 
become proverbial in all history for their sanguinary character, is little 
known. He renewed an extravagant law for the prosecution even of 
inanimate things which had caused the death of any one. Another 
law, attributed to him by Diogenes Laertius, was designed for the 
prevention of idleness ; a habit which (as may be seen in our account 
of Lycurgus) was differently estimated at Sparta, where it formed a 
distinction between the free citizen and the slave. It has been said 
that Draco also depressed the authoritv of the Areopagus, by insti- 
tuting a tribunal called the Ephetce, but Plutarch considers the Areo- 
pagus as not established till the time of Solon. 

Aristotle, who highly esteemed the laws of Draco, has preserved 
an ancient censure of them, as less the work of a man than of a 
dragon, alluding to the name of the legislator. The orator Demades 
also declared that they were written with blood rather than with ink. 
Excessive severity appears upon the whole to have been their striking Severity of 
feature, and death was the punishment of almost every crime, from a Drac0 ' s laws 
trivial theft to the foulest murder ; a severity which, indeed, entirely 
frustrated the legislator's design. 

Notwithstanding the divine sanction which Draco assumed, by 
directing that his laws should be named Thesmoi (if the conjecture of 
Herodotus respecting the origin of the word Qeoc may be followed, 
that this term was applied to the gods because they laid down or dis- 
posed all things), they were presently neglected, and their author 
compelled to fly from the indignation of his countrymen. In his old 
age he took refuge at yEgina, where he met with a most flattering- 
reception ; but his residence there was short, and the maimer of his 



172 PYTHAGORAS. 

Death of death singular as it was tragical. Entering the theatre, the audience, 
to testify their regard, threw upon him their cloaks (a mode of 
homage then in use), and under this load of honours Draco perished. 
Thus is the transaction represented. Yet the character of Draco was 
the last to excite the fond though indiscreet enthusiasm of a mixed 
assembly, and it is most probable that the real design of this 
semblance of respect was accomplished in his assassination. 
His repulsive From the concurrent testimony of historians, Draco appears to have 
Sties?**" possessed a stern integrity, united with a disposition harsh and 
austere. The first is probable from the choice of him by the 
Athenians to the important functions he exercised, though he failed 
in the execution of his trust. But of how dark a cast must that mind 
have been, and of how questionable a character his heart, to whom 
the most trifling crime of a fellow-creature appeared as an atrocity 
admitting of no palliation, and who to the charge of that excessive 
severity is said to have answered, " the smallest crime deserves death, 
and I can find no higher punishment for the greatest!" — thus confess- 
ing that his rigour was bounded only by his ability. Such was 
Draco, according to the scanty remains of him discoverable in 
antiquity. As a legislator he might have shone with distinguished 
lustre at Sparta, but he was ill prepared, by his unqualified austerity, 
to conciliate the milder genius of Athens. 

We must now turn our attention towards the western colonies 
of Greece, and briefly survey the effects of legislation, springing from 
the powerful agencies of science and religion. 




PYTHAGORAS. 

BORN B. C. 580 ; FLOURISHED B. C. 540-530. 

THE POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

B. c. 580. Amongst a nation so acute and impressible as the Greek, there 
were few objects, however ideal in their original treatment, that did 
Practical not subsequently assume a practical form. Thus the imaginative subli- 
X'gS' 9 m ities °f tneir P oets became embodied in their glorious sculptures, 
poetry and and the theories of their early philosophy were wrought out politically, 
philosophy. or g ave wa y tQ cumu l a tive mathematical demonstration. 



PYTHAGORAS. 



173 



One mind there was, indeed, of a grasp so capacious, that the very 
vastness of its native energies has formed the groundwork of incredu- 
lity to modern times, and the histories standing in connection with its 
achievements have taken the characteristics of the supernatural. 
Thales, Anaximander, and Xenophanes were the predecessors of Py- Speculative 
thagoras in the wide field of philosophy. Their doctrines, however, J5fe U e ™°y 
were purely speculative, nor were they calculated to evolve principles philosophy, 
of action, political or religious : their subtle generalities, however laud- 
able as expositions of unaided thought, were barren of results. Not 
so the tendencies of the Pythagorean doctrines. Pythagoras, the 
founder of an order whose institutes partook of the nature of the B. c. 580. 
monastic system, was a native of Samos, the son of a wealthy mer- Birth and 
chant, Mnesarchus by name, born about the fifteenth Olympiad, or py7hag a o g ras 0f 
B.C. 580. 

The Pythagorean brotherhood, first founded upon a religious and 
scientific basis, next wielding vast political influence, was the powerful 
offshoot of a great original mind, deeply learned in the political and 
religious institutes of various nations. Pythagoras is said to have Travels of 
visited the Syrians, Arabians, the Phoenicians, the Chaldseans, the p y tha e oras - 
Indians, and the Druids of Gaul, and thirty years of laborious travel are 
assigned to the training of his reflective intellect. Some of these exten- 
sive journeys have been considered apocryphal. Certain it is that he 
visited Egypt, Phoenicia, and Babylon. The first of these countries 
could not fail to impress so contemplative a mind with the grandeur of 
its monuments, and the religious mysteries of its priesthood. In the Egypt in 
reign of Amasis, when Pythagoras visited Egypt, that country still p y e t h a ™ e r °J 
preserved a large portion of its own peculiar and native character, and 
conveyed a tolerably correct picture of its ancient existence. The 
mysteries, the secret rites and traditions of its priests, stimulated the 
researches of Pythagoras, and held forth, through the medium of 
religion, the hopes of political sway. 

He is said to have been the first Greek who assumed the title of Title, and dis- 
philosopher. But that which chiefly distinguished him was his ardent pJS^™? 
pursuit of mathematical knowledge ; whilst his geometrical, astrono- Pythagoras, 
mical, and musical discoveries were the result of this decisive mental 
bias. Hence, Pythagoras imagined that numbers represented the pro- 
perties of all things. On the return of Pythagoras from his travels in Returns to 
the East, Polycrates was the despot of Samos, and the philosopher Samos - 
finding little encouragement for the introduction of his system under 
the government of the tyrant, resolved to seek a more favourable 
position. Meanwhile the renown of the wisdom and sanctity of the Tarries at 
great philosopher had preceded him into Greece. Here he tarried ^sits^elte 
some time, enhancing his reputation, and extending the circle of his and Sparta, 
knowledge. He now visited specially Crete and Sparta, stopping on 
the same journey at Olympia and Delphi. At the latter place he 
gained many ethical dogmas from Themistoclea, the priestess. Nor 
did the genuine acquirements of Pythagoras constitute his sole claim 



174 



PYTHAGORAS. 



Wide 
claims of 
Pythagoras. 



Pythagorean 
doctrine 
of the 

Metempsy- 
chosis. 



Chief 
outlines 
of the 

Pythagorean 
system. 



Repairs to 
Croton. 
B. 0. 

535-530. 



Results of 
Pythagoras's 
arrival at 
Croton. 



Is made 
president of 
the supreme 



Influence in 
Itnlv and 
Sicily. 



Political 

brotherhood 

established. 



to popular favour : his pretensions took a wider range, and were com- 
mensurate with the general credulity of the age. He asserted the 
privilege of distinctly remembering the various forms of existence 
through which his soul had previously passed, and affirmed that this 
privilege had been bestowed on him by the god Hermes. On one 
occasion, seeing a dog beaten, and hearing him howl, Pythagoras 
compassionately exclaimed, " Hold ! beat him not, for it is the soul of 
a dear friend, whom I recognise by his voice." From both legends 
and historical relics which have reached us, it is evident that Pytha- 
goras was a man of ascendant mind, whose claims to the gift of 
inspiration and the power of effecting miracles drew round him a 
special brotherhood, united by peculiar religious rites and observances. 

The employment of music in calming the disordered passions, — the 
knowledge of physiognomy, so applicable to the right admission of 
candidates to the noviciate, — a long introductory course of silence, 
self-scrutiny, and discipline of the memory, together with vigilance to 
insure sobriety and bodily vigour, — these were the great outlines of 
his system. 

In 535-530 B.C., Pythagoras directed his course to Croton, a 
prosperous city of the Italian Greeks, celebrated for the superiority of 
its physicians, and still more for the conquerors it had sent forth to 
the Olympic games. In Croton the supreme authority was admi- 
nistered by a council of one thousand, the heirs or representatives of 
its chief founders. Its power and population were of great extent, 
though the majority had no share in the political franchise. Of the 
system of filling the executive offices we are ignorant. 

On the arrival of Pythagoras at this important city, the most asto- 
nishing results were produced upon the popular mind ; a moral and 
political reform in their most powerful sense. Luxury was abandoned ; 
simplicity took the place of seductive attire ; and incontinence was 
banished. At the very first discourse of Pythagoras two thousand 
individuals were converted ; and the supreme council, penetrated with 
the noble powers of the great missionary of morality, offered him the 
exalted post of their president, and placed at the head of the religious 
female processions his wife and daughter. 

But his influence was not bounded even by the populous city of 
Croton : much of Italy and Sicily were to experience the moral and 
political regeneration : Sybaris, Rhegium, Metapontum, Himera, and 
Catana felt the edifying power of his doctrines. In Croton, the reve- 
rence of the multitude towards Pythagoras was unbounded ; while a 
select body of the wealthy and aristocratic, to the number of three 
hundred, bound themselves in a mutual vow, and in an oath of obe- 
dience to their founder. This powerful brotherhood adopted a distinct 
diet and ritual, the token of their unity, which at length became so 
intricate as to produce political results of a high order, though its 
initiatory course had been religious and scientific only. The cha- 
racteristics of the Pythagoreans, however, embraced not only the 



PYTHAGORAS. 



175 



elements of union, but of disruption also ; for the haughty exclusive- its exclusive 
ness of its members, and their contempt for every other individual character - 
beyond their own religious and political pale, excited the bitter enmity 
of many of the wealthier citizens, whom Pythagoras did not consider 
it expedient to admit into his society. Notwithstanding, the order Ascendancy 
continued to acquire amazing ascendancy in the government of Croton ; ramifications, 
and, as its ramifications extended to other cities, it gradually influenced 
public affairs throughout nearly the whole of Magna Grsecia. The 
political principles of the association were decidedly aristocratic, and 
diametrically opposed to the control of the people ; in which respect, 
indeed, they coincided with the previous institutes of the city of Croton. 

Meanwhile the widening influence of the Pythagoreans had excited The institute 
increasing popular discontent, and nothing but the employment of g*™*^ 
force would satisfy their enemies ; nor were there wanting powerful 
chiefs to lead the opposition. Cylon and Ninon were the champions 
of democratic enterprise ; the virulence of the former was roused by 
being refused admittance to the Pythagorean order, on account of his 
bad character. The propositions now advanced were, that a new Cylon 
senate, taken by lot from the general body of the people, should be SSSfofa 
created, and that to this assembly the magistrates should be account- new senate, 
able on the expiration of their office. Notwithstanding the opposition 
of the Pythagoreans, supported by the One Thousand, this change of 
the government was completed ; and this change Cylon and Ninon 
wielded as a formidable weapon for the total political subversion of 
the order. By dint of frequently exasperating the populace against immediate 
the association, they at length succeeded in provoking actual violence overthrow 116 
against its members. This result, however, they would not have been of the Pytha- 
able to produce, had not circumstances of a peculiar character assisted goreans * 
their efforts. 

It happened just at this critical period that the civil commotions of 
Sybaris had ended in an insurrection against the oligarchs of that city : 
the result was the expulsion of the entire body, to the number of five 
hundred, who took refuge at Croton. At the head of the insurgents 
was Telys, a popular leader, who now haughtily sent to demand the 
surrender of the refugees, under a threat of instant war in case of non- 
compliance. Croton, by the advice of Pythagoras, resolutely refused, War between 
and armed for the approaching conflict. Three hundred thousand men, svbS. and 
the whole power of Sybaris, advanced against the city of Croton. 
They were encountered by a third of that number, under the command 
of the renowned Milo, the disciple of Pythagoras. Callias, too, the 
celebrated soothsayer, seceding from the Sybarites, came over to the 
cause of the Crotonians, and announced that calamities were impending 
over their enemies. The two hosts now encountered on the river Battle of 
Traeis, or Toronto. The great athlete, Milo, clothed in the costume ofJ™™ &1 f o( 
Heracles, and armed with his massy club, made prodigious slaughter Milo. 
amongst the enemy ; while the Spartan Dorius (the brother of King 
Cleomenes), then coasting along the gulf of Tarentum, landing with 



176 



SOLON. 



Defeat of the his colonists, formed an irresistible reinforcement to the Crotonians. 
destruction 1 The Sybarites were totally defeated ; in seventy days their whole power 
of their was completely crashed ; and so exasperated were the Crotonians, that 
they swept away the very vestiges of Sybaris, by turning through the 
town the course of the river Crathis. 
Su h S e g the ans Elated by this victory, the Pythagoreans and the senate of Croton 
conquered claimed the exclusive privilege of retaining, as administrators of the 
commonaky state > tne whole of the spoils, as well as the lands of the conquered, and 
' refused to concede any share to the commonalty. This resolution 
produced intense irritation, and the whole fury of the multitude was 
directed against the Pythagoreans by the artful Cylon. A tumult 
ensued : Milo's house was fired, and numbers of the Pythagoreans, 
who had assembled there, perished in the flames. The young and 
vigorous sought safety in exile ; while Pythagoras himself, who does 
Sesat Meta- not a PP ear to nave been at Croton during the commotion, died not 
pontum. long after at Metapontum. Thus perished the political power of the 
Pythagoreans, and with their fall at Croton sank also their influence at 
Tarentum, Metapontum, Caulonia, and other leading cities of Magna 
Greecia. 




SOLON. 

FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 594. 

born The history of Attica, after the expulsion of Draco, has preserved 
B. c. 638. no name of eminence before that of Solon, her second and more suc- 
cessful lawgiver, who also attained a high distinction among the sages 
of Greece. He was born, according to the most approved computa- 
tion, in the second year of the thirty-fifth Olympiad, which answers 
to the year 638 before the Christian sera. 
Family of The name of Solon's father, according to one author, was Eupho- 
Soion. r -- n . pi lu;arc h decides in favour of the more common opinion, 
that he was the son of Execestides. His family was eminent among 
the Athenians, and is said to have been descended from their king 



SOLON. 



177 



Codrus. They must have resided in the isle of Salamis at the birth of 
Solon, according to Diogenes Laertius, who in one place calls him a 
Salaminian, and in another speaks of his native country of Salamis. 
His mother was related to Peisistratus, with whom Solon formed an 
intimate friendship, although, as will appear in the sequel, he refused 
to sacrifice the liberties of his country to his friend's ambition. 

The father of Solon is said to have reduced his fortune by liberality 
and habits of expense ; so that his son inherited a small property, in- 
adequate to the support of his rank. It must, however, be added, 
that Aristotle describes Solon as one of the inferior citizens, upon the 
authority of some work of the legislator himself. In either case it is 
admitted, that he entered into life scantily supplied with the favours 
of fortune. 

He, however, possessed wealth of another description, for he early His high 
discovered a genius for poetry ; and it was the opinion of Plato, to jjjjjj* 1 
whose time many of his pieces had no doubt been preserved, that if 
he had finished his compositions, and found leisure to correct them, 
they would have equalled the most celebrated productions of the 
ancients. In the cultivation of this talent his first object was amuse- 
ment. He afterwards applied it to moral and political purposes; 
and, according to Plutarch, " he cultivated chiefly that part of moral 
philosophy which treats of civil obligations." 

The same writer, who adopts the opinion of Solon's hereditary 
rank, says, that though he " might have been supported by his 
friends, yet, as he was of a family which had long and often assisted 
others, he was ashamed to accept of assistance himself ; and, there- 
fore, in his younger years, applied himself to merchandize." For, as 
he observes, after Hesiod, " in those times no business was looked 
upon as a disparagement, nor did any trade cause a disadvantageous 
distinction." Yet while Solon, in pursuit of commerce, visited other 
countries, he at the same time acquired that knowledge which enabled 
him to improve the condition of his own, and placed him, deservedly, 
among the sages of Greece. 

Of Solon's travels, before his name becomes connected with the His travels, 
public affairs of Athens, no particulars have been recorded; nor, 
indeed, has his biographer, Plutarch, been careful to observe any 
order which might guide us through his narration. Yet we learn, 
from anecdotes which he has related, that Solon visited Delphi, 
Corinth, and Miletus. These visits, however, must be referred to a 
late period of his life; for, as appears from a circumstance which 
occurred at the latter place, he had previously married and raised a 
family at Athens. His first public appearance there, of which any 
record has been preserved, was under the following circumstances : — 

The Athenians, who had long contended with the people of First 
Megara for the possession of the isle of Salamis, were now become in public? 6 
weary of the contest. They forbade any one, under pain of death, 
to propose, by speech or writing, a renewal of the war ; thus sub- 
[h. g.] n 



178 



SOLON. 



mitting to abandon their claim to the sovereignty of that island, 
rather than encounter the further peril of supporting it. Solon disap- 
approved this decree, which he considered as dishonourable. He 
was, perhaps, also unwilling that Salamis, the place of his birth, 
should be wrested from the dominion of Athens; and having 
observed among the youthful Athenians, in particular, a desire to 
recommence the war (though they feared to incur the penalty of the 
decree), he counterfeited madness, and sallying out to the market- 
place, with a cap upon his head, such as was worn only by the sick, 
he stood upon the her aid's stone, and read, with a loud voice, some 
verses he had prepared to expose the impolicy of the decree. In this 
design he was successfully supported by Peisistratus, his relation ; 
and the people repealed the decree. They now immediately deter- 
mined to renew the war, and invested Solon with the principal com- 
mand. Of the manner in which he proceeded to gain possession of 
Salamis, Plutarch gives two different accounts, but describes the fol- 
lowing as that generally received. 

" He sailed with Peisistratus to Colias, and having seized the 
women, who, according to the custom of the country, were offering 
sacrifice to Demeter there, he sent a trusty person to Salamis, who was 
to pretend he was a deserter, and to advise the Megarensians, if they 
were inclined to seize the principal Athenian matrons, to set sail im- 
Megarean mediately for Colias. The Megarensians sending out a body of men, 
war * Solon discovered the ship as it put off from the island, and causing 

the women directly to withdraw, ordered the young men, whose faces 
were yet smooth, to put on the dresses of the women. Thus, with 
weapons concealed under their clothes, they danced and played by the 
sea-side, till the enemy landed, and their vessel was near enough to be 
seized. The Megarensians, deceived by this stratagem, ran confusedly 
on shore, striving which should first seize the supposed women ; but 
they were all cut off, and the Athenians, proceeding immediately to 
Salamis, took possession of the island." 

Yet the people of Megara renewed the war, until, at length, the 
question of right to Salamis was referred to the decision of five 
Lacedaemonians, who determined in favour of the people of Attica. 
Diogenes Laertius, who is confirmed by Plutarch, relates that Solon 
caused several graves to be opened at Salamis, and exposed the bodies 
lying with their faces towards the east, a custom peculiar to the 
Athenians, which proved their early possession of the island. He is 
said also to have availed himself, upon this occasion, of an oracle, in 
which the island of Salamis had been styled Ionian ; and not to have 
scrupled to commit the fraud of interpolating a line to his purpose in 
Homer's catalogue of the ships. The Athenians, however, rejected 
this story, and maintained that the island had been ceded to them in a 
former treaty, of which Solon convinced the Lacedaemonian judges. 
Solon's To the reputation he thus acquired among the Athenians, was 

wisdom. added the praise bestowed upon his wisdom by the whole people of 



SOLON. 



179 



Greece on the following occasion : — The inhabitants of Cirrha, a town 
in the Corinthian gulf, after repeated incursions on the territory of 
Delphi, attacked the capital itself. The Amphictyons declared war 
against these sacrilegious invaders ; and, according to the advice of 
Solon, all the Grecian states united to resent their impiety. Having 
besieged Cirrha for some time unsuccessfully, they consulted the 
oracle, which answered, that the place could not be taken till the 
waves of the Cirrhgean sea should wash the sacred shore. The Greeks 
were surprised, and despaired of obeying the oracle, till Solon recom- 
mended the consecratioD of the whole of the Cirrheean territory, which 
was maritime, to the Delphic Apollo. The oracle thus satisfied, the 
confederate army was encouraged to rely on a victory, and Cirrha in 
consequence was taken, and made the arsenal of Delphi. 

Solon may be fairly supposed to have now obtained his- station 
among the wise men of Greece ; and to this period of his life we may 
refer, with more propriety than to any other, his interview with the 
rest of the sages at Delphi, and afterwards at Corinth, on the invita- Solon 
tion of Periander, king of that country, at whose court they were J' f p e e ri cc JJ5 
entertained. Here the question was started, Which is the most 
perfect popular government ? That, said Bias, where the laws have 
no superior. That, said Thales, where the people are neither ex- 
cessively rich, nor miserably poor. Anacharsis, decided for the 
government under which virtue is honoured and vice detested ; 
Pittacus for the one where dignities are conferred only on virtue ; 
Cleobulus for that which should inspire more fear of blame than of 
punishment ; and Chilo for that under which the laws are more re- 
garded than the orators; but Solon's was esteemed the wisest 
decision. " It is," said he, " that government where an injury done 
to the meanest citizen is considered as an insult upon the whole com- 
munity." 

There is a story related of these sages which strikingly displays The seven 
their modesty. A dispute arose between some Coan fishermen and JJj-^f 
several strangers from Miletus, respecting the right to a golden tripod 
which the former had drawn up in their nets. The Milesians claimed 
it, as having purchased the draught, whatever it might contain. Yet 
the fishermen refused to yield their prize ; and the states to which 
the two parties belonged might have been involved in hostilities, but 
for the irresistible interference of Apollo. His priestess directed that 
the tripod should be bestowed on the wisest man who could be dis- 
covered. On this decision it was sent first to Thales ; the Coans, 
says Plutarch, readily presenting to one of the Milesians that for 
which they would have made war with all his countrymen. Thales, 
acknowledging the superior claim of Bias, it was carried to him. He 
referred it to another, as wiser still. After thus travelling round to 
them all, it was returned to Thales; and, at length, was dedicated at 
Thebes to the Ismenian Apollo. It is added to the story, besides 
some variations usual in these anecdotes, that this tripod was thrown 

N 2 



180 



SOLON. 



into the sea, in compliance with an ancient oracle, by Helen, on her 
return from Troy. 

Solon at During Solon's entertainment at Miletus, his host practised upon 

him an artifice, neither creditable to his feelings nor his judgment. 
On his expressing surprise that Thales did not marry and raise a 
family, the latter made no reply ; but shortly after a stranger was 
introduced, who, being previously instructed, pretended to have just 
arrived from Athens. Solon inquired what was passing there. The 
stranger recollected only the public funeral of a young man, the son of 
an honourable person abroad on his travels. What an unhappy man, 
exclaimed Solon, but what is his name ? I have forgotten the name, 
replied the stranger, but his wisdom and justice are much celebrated. 
Solon, whose alarm was increased by every reply, tremblingly inquired 
if the deceased youth were the son of Solon ? The stranger replying 
in the affirmative, he was transported into all the extravagance of 
sorrow. Upon which Thales, taking his hand, said, with a smile, 
" The dread of evils, sufficient to overwhelm the firm mind of Solon, 
have deterred me from marriage and the cares of a family. But be 
assured, my friend, that your present distress is groundless. Not a 
word which has been told you is true." It was either on this occa- 
sion, or on the real loss of a son, when one of his friends represented 
to him that his tears were unavailing, that Solon is said to have 
replied, " It is for that cause I weep." 
Athens.* ^ n n ^ s retlirn to Athens, Solon was soon called forward into the 
public service by the dissensions which prevailed among the citizens. 
There had always been a strong party averse to the democratic govern- 
ment ; and especialrv to the annual election of the magistrates. 
Among these, Cylon, a man of rank, was conspicuous. He had taken 
advantage of the absence of the citizens at the games, and made him- 
self master of the citadel, in the forty-fifth Olympiad. Being there 
besieged, and reduced to extremities, he fled, and his followers who 
survived took refuge in the temple of Athene. The sanctuary was 
violated, and the fury of the people excited against the sacrilege. 
" The dispute," says Plutarch, " was greater than ever, when Solon, 
whose authority was now highly respected, persuaded the persons 
called execrable, to submit to justice, and a fair trial, before three 
hundred judges, selected from the nobility. They were condemned 
and driven into exile, and the bodies of their deceased comrades were 
dug up and cast out beyond the borders of Attica. Amidst these 
disturbances, the people of Megara renewed the war, and once more 
recovered Salamis ." 

mendshi of About ^is time Epimenides arrived at Athens, whither he was 
Solon and invited on account of his skill in the forms of expiation ; which the 
Epimenides. soothsayers had taught that the gods required, on account of " certain 
abominable crimes pointed out by the entrails of the victims." Solon 
formed a friendship with this philosopher, and consulted him on the 
projects he was now entertaining. To prepare the way for the re- 



SOLON". 



181 



ception of his friend's designed regulations, Epimenides, says Plutarch, 
" taught the Athenians to be more frugal in their religious worship, 
and more moderate in their mourning, by intermixing certain sacrifices 
with their funeral solemnities, and abolishing the barbarous customs 
which had generally prevailed among the women ; and he made the 
people more observant of justice, and more inclined to union." 

Plutarch observes of Solon, " that his reputation was very great 
before he appeared in the character of a legislator ;" nor is it surprising 
that the Athenians should rely on his counsel when they " relapsed 
into their old disputes concerning the government." His biographer 
adds, that " there were as many parties among them, as there were 
different tracts of land. The inhabitants of the mountainous part were Political 
for a democracy ; those of the plains for an oligarchy ; while those of factions of 
the sea-coast contended for a mixed government. At the same time, 
the inequality between the rich and poor occasioned perpetual dis- 
cord : so greatly were the poor in debt, that they were obliged either 
to pay a sixth part of the produce of the land, or to engage their 
persons to their creditors, who might seize them on failure of payment. 
Accordingly, some made slaves of them, and others sold them to 
foreigners. Some parents were forced to sell their own children, and 
to quit the city to avoid the severe treatment of those usurers." Thus, 
" the state was in so dangerous a situation, that there seemed to be no 
way to quell the seditions, or to save it from ruin, but the changing it 
to a monarchy." 

Solon was now indeed urged by the heads of the disagreeing parties Solon 
to assume the honours of royalty, which he resolutely declined, even ^^^ s the 
though the oracle was employed to recommend that measure, and his 
friends affected to ridicule his refusal. He was, however, chosen 
principal archon, with special authority to settle the differences 
between the rich and poor. Plutarch says he was preferred "as a 
man least obnoxious to either party, having neither been engaged in 
oppressions with the rich, nor entangled in necessities with the poor ; " 
and that " though he rejected absolute authority, he discovered a suffi- 
cient spirit, neither making concessions to the powerful, nor indulging 
the humour of his constituents." The mode of his election was as 
singular as the occasion. The choice had been usually decided by the 
form of drawing lots, which the gods were supposed to overrule, but 
Solon was elected by acclamation, the people not choosing, in a case of 
so much importance, to rely even on their divinities. The archonship 
of Solon is dated at about 594 years before the Christian sera, when b. c. 594. 
the legislator must have been at the age of forty-five. Considering 
the period assigned to his death, he probably employed several years 
in consolidating his code of jurisprudence. 

His immediate attention was now directed to a case of peculiar Laws relating 
urgency, the condition of the poor under engagements which they had ^d^ordi- 
no means of discharging. To put an end to the severities inflicted by nance of the 
creditors, and which had been the frequent occasion of public Seisacthia - 



182 



SOLON. 



disorder, he employed his authority, which was indeed that of a dic- 
tator, by publishing an ordinance, entitled Seisachthia, or the discharge. 
On the precise meaning of this term there are different opinions. It 
was probably desigued to express a general remittance, of debts of 
every description ; so that no creditor in future should be permitted 
to take for security the body of his debtor. Yet some have supposed 
that the relief consisted not in cancelling the debt, but in reducing the 
interest, and raising the value of money ; the mina, for instance, from 
the value of 73 to that of 100 drachms. Yet the former explanation 
best agrees with Solon's verses, in which he boasts of having removed 
the marks from mortgaged houses ; alluding to a custom of placing 
billets on those which were held under such engagements. 

This contrivance of Solon seems to have been particularly grateful 
to his recollection ; for he boasts, in one of his poems, of having freed 
many of the people's minds from apprehension, and their bodies from 
the condition of slaves. The law was, indeed, as much to the credit 
of his self-denying generosity, as of his philanthropy, if we receive the 
Generosity account of Laertius. He says that Solon's father having " left him in 
otSoioi.. monev seven thousand talents, which were owing from several men, 
he presently remitted all those debts, and, by his example, excited 
others to discover the same lenity." This appears to be confirmed by 
Plutarch, where he mentions three of Solon's friends who, on a 
previous knowledge of his design to abolish the debts, and not to 
divide the lands, borrowed large sums of the rich, and purchased 
estates. This brought on him reflections, as if he were " an ac- 
complice in the fraud. The charge, however, was soon refuted, on 
his being the first to comply with the law, by remitting a debt of five, 
or, as some say, fifteen talents." 

The effect of this ordinance has been variously represented. The 
name discharge is attributed to the people's approbation of the measure. 
Yet Plutarch presently adds, that it, " satisfied neither the poor nor 
the rich," the first having desired a division of lands, as at Sparta, and 
the latter resenting the " cancelling of their bonds." Yet he after- 
wards describes the people as " sensible of the utility of the decree, 
and offering a public sacrifice, which they called seisachthia, or the 
Solon sacrifice of the discharge." They also constituted Solon lawgiver, 
1 c a ^f v t e u r ted " committing to him the regulation of the whole magistracies, as- 
semblies, courts of judicature, and senate, leaving him to determine 
the qualifications, number, and time of meeting for them all, as well 
as to abrogate or continue the former constitutions at his pleasure. 

Solon soon discovered that he was superior to the vanity of rejecting 
anything useful, because it was the work of another. On the contrary, 
he preserved whatever he found commendable in the existing institu- 
tions. " Where the former establishment was tolerable," says Plutarch, 
" he neither applied remedies, nor used the incision-knife, lest he should 
put the whole in disorder, and be unable to compose it again in the 
temperature he might wish." Such a conduct was well calculated to 



SOLON. 



183 



secure the good opinion of the people ; and, indeed, his reply to the 
sarcasms of Anacharsis sufficiently discovers his knowledge of man- 
kind. 

Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, according to Herodotus, Anacharsis' 
arrived at Athens about the 47th Olympiad, or 590 years before the JjjJgJJj, 
Christian sera. The story of his interview with Solon is told by Plu- 
tarch, whose account, however, of their being strangers to each other, 
does not exactly agree with their previous meeting at Corinth, where 
all the sages are said to have assembled. The philosopher sought 
admission to Solon, expressing a wish to cultivate his friendship. 
Solon answered, that friendships were made best at home. " Then," 
said Anacharsis, " do vou, who are at home, make me your friend, 
and receive me into your house." Solon, pleased with the quickness 
of his repartee, bade him welcome. He was at this time occupied in 
his great work of legislation, as appears from the following story, 
which Plutarch has Dreserved, though Laertius has only mentioned 
the repartee. 

Upon the discovery of his friend's employment, Anacharsis expressed 
his surprise that any one should hope to control the avarice and injus- 
tice of mankind by written laws, which resembled spiders' webs, as 
they only entangled the poor and defenceless, while the rich and 
powerful easily broke through them. Solon replied, that agreements Their 
are kept when both parties see their interest concerned in not breaking JJjfjjg 113 
them : and his design was, to make his laws obviously beneficial to benefits of 
the Athenians. Plutarch immediately adds, as to the event of Solon's le 8 islation - 
legislation, " that Anacharsis was nearer the truth in his conjecture, 
than Solon in his hope." Yet there is a testimony highly creditable 
to Solon's expectation, and which shows that his laws were still held 
in esteem, even after his biographer was in his grave. So late as 
a. d. 130, on a complaint by the Athenians, that too many changes 
had been made in the laws of Solon, the emperor Hadrian assumed to 
himself the office of archon, and restored the ancient law. 1 

The exact order in which Solon proceeded to execute his great 
work of legislation cannot now be ascertained, nor is it of much im- 
portance. Nothing can be more probable than the first act ascribed to 
him, of repealing the laws of Draco, which could Lave been but ill 
observed after the expulsion of that lawgiver; and, indeed, their 
severity- had rendered them impracticable. Solon, however, now for- 
mally repealed them all, except that for the punishment of murder ; 
he also, according to Laertius, retained the law against idleness, which, 
on the authority of Lysias, the orator, he describes, as "written by 
Draco, but enacted by Solon," though certainly without the penalty of 
death. 

Solon next estimated the estates, intending to leave the great offices Laws 
to the rich. Such as had a yearly income of five hundred measures of JJjJJjJjj, 
corn he placed in the first rank. The second consisted of those who ranks of the 
1 Butler's Horae Juridicse Subsecivae, vol. ii. 



184 



SOLON, 



The senate 
of Four 
Hundred. 



The court 
of the 
Areopagus. 



could keep a horse, or whose lands produced three hundred measures. 
Those were in the third class who had but two hundred measures. 
The rest, who had no property, were not admitted to any office ; they 
had only a right to vote in the general assembly. This right soon 
appeared to be highly important, for an appeal lay from the decisions 
of the magistrates to that assembly. Plutarch adds, that "he is said 
to have expressed his laws with some obscurity, on purpose to enlarge 
the influence of the popular tribunal. For, as disputants could not 
decide their differences by the letter of the law, they were obliged to 
resort to the whole body of citizens, who thus had all controversies 
brought before them." 1 

Desirous yet further to give security and importance to the com- 
monalty, he empowered any man to prosecute the offender, in behalf 
of a citizen who suffered damage or violence ; and in reference to this 
law, on being asked " What city was best regulated?" he answered, 
" That in which those who are not injured are no less ready to prosecute 
and punish offenders than those who are." 

Plutarch, who has thus represented Solon as solicitous to give a 
preponderating influence to the people, presently after describes him as 
detracting from their importance, by subjecting them to the control of 
a senate. " Observing that the people, now discharged from their 
debts, grew insolent and imperious, he proceeded to constitute another 
council, or senate of four hundred, a hundred out of each tribe, by 
whom all affairs were to be previously considered ; and he ordered 
that no matter, without their approbation, should be laid before the 
general assembly." This senate appears to have had a power like that 
of the Lords of Articles over the parliament of Scotland ; for to them, 
according to Robertson, 2 " every motion for a new law was first made 
and approved, or rejected by them at pleasure." Yet as the members 
of the Athenian senate were chosen out of 'the people at large, and 
were subject to annual election, they could scarcely maintain an opposite 
interest. History, indeed, sufficiently discovers, that when Attica was 
not oppressed by some tyranny, the popular influence was little con- 
trolled, except by the " famous orators," whom Milton celebrates — 

Those ancients, whose resistless eloquence 

Wielded at will that fierce democratic, 

Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 

To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne. 

The senate and court of Areopagus, of which Archbishop Potter 5 
has given a full and interesting account, were rather restored and regu- 
lated, than established by Solon. He particularly reinstated this court 
in those rights which, as we have remarked, had been taken from it by 

1 Plutarch quotes, on this subject, the following verses of the legislator : — i 
By me the people held their native rights, 
Uninjur'd, unoppress'd. The great restrain' d 
From lawless violence, and the poor from rapine,. 
By me, their mutual shield. 



2 Hist, b. 1. 



3 Antiq. b. 1, c. six. 



SOLON. 



185 



Draco and bestowed on the Ephetas. The number of the senators has 
been disputed, whether nine, thirty- one, or fifty-one, on grounds which 
are detailed by Potter. This court became proverbially venerable in 
the ancient world, while foreigners resorted to it for counsel, or referred 
their differences to its decision. Nor can the name ever lose its interest, 
while we recollect that the Apostle of the Gentiles there first taught 
Christianity, at Athens, with that commanding eloquence which the 
rhetorician and the artist have alike laboured to describe. 

" To this court of Areopagus," says Mr. Tytler, " Solon committed 
the guardianship of the laws, and the power of enforcing them. To 
this tribunal belonged also the custody of the treasures of the state, the 
care of religion, and a tutorial power over the youth of the republic. 
The number of its judges was various at different periods, and the 
most immaculate purity of character was essential to that high office." 
Potter has collected from the ancients the following particulars. " All 
that had undergone the office of an archon were not taken into this Quaiifica- 
senate, but only such of them as had been able to give a satisfactory se° n n a s t e OT the 
account of their administration, after an inquiry which was extremely 
severe, rigorous, and particular. To have been sitting in a tavern was 
a sufficient reason to deny an archon's admission into it ; and though 
their dignity was usually continued to them as long as they lived, yet 
if any of the senators was convicted of any immorality, he was, without 
mercy or favour, presently expelled. Nor was it enough that their 
lives were strictly innocent and unblamable, but something more was 
required of them ; their countenances, words, actions, and all their 
behaviour must be composed, serious, and grave to a degree beyond 
what was expected from other (the most virtuous) men. To laugh in 
their assembly was an unpardonable act of levity ; and for any of them 
to write a comedy, was forbidden by a particular precept of the law." 1 

The powers of the principal archon, and the origin of his appoint- 
ment, we have shown in the life of Draco. His duties in the civil 
administration of justice cannot be described more correctly than in 
the words of a learned writer on " the Grecian Law," Mr. Butler, 
whom we have already quoted : — 

" All cases respecting the rights of things belonged to the jurisdiction Rights and 
of the archon : he had six inferior magistrates of the same name for his f^JSisf the 
assessors. The person who sought redress in a court of justice de- 
nounced the name of his adversary and the cause of his complaint to 
the sitting magistrate ; and if the sitting magistrate thought the cause 
of action maintainable, he permitted the complainant to summon the 
defendant : if the defendant disobeyed the summons he was declared 
infamous ; if he obeyed it, the parties were confronted, and were at 
liberty to interrogate one another. If the magistrate thought there 
was a probable cause of action, he admitted the cause into court ; here 
the pleadings began, and were continued till the parties came to some 

1 Antiq. c. xix. 



186 



SOLON. 



Law against 
neutrality 
during a 
sedition. 



Fragments 
of Athenian 
laws. 



Amuse- 
ments. 



fact, or some point of law, asserted on one side, and denied by the 
other ; this brought them to issue : then all the pleadings and evi- 
dence in the causes were shut up in a vessel which was carried into 
court. The archon then assigned the judges to try the cause, and they 
decided not only upon the fact, but upon the law of the case." 1 

Among the laws which regulated the conduct of the people towards 
the government, Plutarch describes one as the most extraordinary, 
which declared the. man infamous who remained neutral during a 
sedition. Aulus Gellius adds, that such an one was condemned to lose 
his estates and to be sent into exile. Plutarch applauds this law, lest 
a citizen might otherwise determine to consult his safety till he saw on 
what side victory inclined. But it is obvious that, in the case sup- 
posed, a conscientious citizen might be unable to discover the side of 
justice. Another regulation was ill calculated to advance public 
improvement, as it imposed a heavy responsibility on a projector; for 
he that propounded a law contrary to the common good was to be 
indicted, leaving the question of good or evil to the uncertain result of 
a popular decision. That was a more judicious regulation which 
appointed an annual examination of the laws, to correct any contradic- 
tions wh.ch might be found among them. 

The fragments of the Athenian laws, as they could be discovered in 
the writings of the ancients, were collected and first published by 
Samuel Petitus, in 1635, with a commentary, which has the credit of 
Mr. Butler's praise. Of this collection, Archbishop Potter professed 
to avail himself in his Archceologia Grceca. From that work chiefly we 
shall select a few specimens of the manner in which the laws of Solon 
appear to have affected the personal and domestic condition of the 
Athenians. 

As to their worship, the first fruits of the earth were annually 
offered ; and in the sacrifice of animals, the offerer carried part of the 
oblation to his family, leaving the remainder as a fee to the priest. 
No strange god could be worshipped at Athens, till approved by the 
Areopagus ; and, as appears from the Acts of the Apostles, it was on 
this law that St. Paul was brought before that tribunal. During the 
celebration of new moons or other festivals, all business unconnected 
with the feasts was suspended, and the too common employment of 
defamation was expressly forbidden. The initiated, who must be 
natives, dedicated the garments which they wore, during the ceremony, 
in the temples of Demeter and Persephone ; and it was a capital crime 
to divulge the mysteries. 

As to amusements, Plutarch mentions a law of Solon respecting 
entertainments at the public charge. He forbade the same person to 
be often found at them, and laid a penalty on those who neglected to 
attend when invited. Yet, from an anecdote which he relates of a 
conversation between Solon, in his old age, and Thespis, it appears 



Hor. Jurid. ed. Ti. 



19. 



SOLON. 



187 



that the legislator, though himself a poet, was no friend to theatrical 
exhibitions. In these the actors must be thirty years of age at least, 
and no archon was to be exposed in a comedy. 

The public appearance of women was strictly regulated, according Public 
to Plutarch, as to their journeys, mournings, and sacrifices. He adds of women! 
the following account : " They were to travel with no more than three 
habits, and their provisions were not to exceed the value of an obolus. 
Their basket was to be only a cubit in height, and in the night they 
were not to travel without a torch. At funerals (where none under 
sixty years of age could attend) they were forbidden to tear themselves, 
and no hired mourner might utter lamentations. They were not per- 
mitted to sacrifice an ox on such occasions ; or to bury more than 
three garments with the body ; or to visit any tombs beside those of 
their own family, except at the time of interment." 

Marriage was sanctioned by a law which punished a detected adul- 
terer with death ; while an adulteress was forbidden to adorn herself, 
or to assist at the public sacrifices ; or, if she appeared, she might 
have her garments torn and be beaten, though not so as to be killed or 
disabled. The violation of virgins was, at the same time, punished 
only by a fine. 

As to children, it does not appear so clearly that Solon sanctioned Education 
their exposure, as we have seen Lycurgus to have done. Yet the of chlldrei1 
custom having been always described as general in Greece, with the 
exception of the Thebans, and as, in the time of Aristotle, it was 
reckoned and defended by him as a common practice, it may be fairly 
considered as at least not forbidden by the laws of Solon. Respecting 
the education of children, Solon determined that their first instruction 
was to be in the art of 'swimming and the rudiments of literature ; 
those whose prospects or abilities were but mean were then to learn 
husbandry, manufactures, and trades ; but those whose parents could 
afford a genteel education were to be taught the use of musical instru- 
ments, and to ride; to study philosophy, learn to hunt, and be in- 
structed in the gymnastic exercises. He who struck his parents, or 
refused to provide for them, was declared infamous ; though this pro- 
vision was not obligatory on bastards, or those whom the parents had 
neglected to educate for some occupation. 

The ingenious, but unfortunate, Dr. Brown, in his " Code of Edu- 
cation," finds fault with the Athenian government, because there was 
" the total want of an established education, suitable to the genius of 
the state ;" and he extols, in contrast, the institutions of Sparta, where 
" no father had a right to educate his children according to the caprice 
of his own fancy." To this it was justly answered by Priestley, 1 that 
44 while the arts of life were improving in all the neighbouring nations, 
Sparta derived this noble prerogative from her constitution, that she 
continued the nearest to her pristine barbarity; and in the space of nearly 
a thousand years produced no one poet, orator, historian, or artist of 
1 Remarks, 1765, p. 163. 



188 



SOLOX. 



any kind." He adds, " the convulsions of Athens, where life was in 
some measure enjoyed, and the faculties of body and mind had their 
proper exercise and gratification, are with me far preferable to the 
savage imiformity of Sparta." 
Laws a s to the slaves, who formed the great majority in Greece, though 

r^spcctinsj j j o 

the slaves, not honoured with the name of people, the laws of Solon were humane, 
compared to those of Lycurgus. It appears, indeed, from a work on 
the revenue of Athens, attributed to Xenophon, that they were branded, 
and sold in droves like cattle, to be employed in the silver mines of 
Attica. But as to the domestic slaves especially, they appear to have 
enjoyed an unusual protection by the laws. Above all may be reckoned 
that law which suffered " any slave unable to drudge under the im- 
periousness of his master, to quit his service for one more gentle." By 
another law, a slave was allowed to buy his freedom. Slaves were per- 
mitted to appear at the temples, but were not allowed to plead or give 
evidence in any court. They were also forbidden, as well as women, 
the practice of medicine. 

Our readers who would further investigate the laws which Solon 
enacted, or of which he gave the hints on which his successors im- 
proved, will do well to consult the authorities we have mentioned, and 
to which we have here been principally indebted. We now continue 
the history of the lawgiver. 

Solon decreed that his laws should remain in force for a hundred 
years. They were written, according to Plutarch, " upon wooden 
tables, which might be turned round in the oblong cases which con- 
tained them." He adds, that some remains of them were " preserved 
in the Prytaneum " to his time ; and we have seen that they were 
esteemed by the people of Athens for some years after the death of 
Thesmo- he P^ utarcn ' He adds that " the Thesmothetae, or guardians of the laws, 
thetae. severally took an oath, in a particular form, by a stone in the market- 
place, that for every law they broke, each would dedicate a golden 
statue at Delphi of the same weight with himself." 

However much Solon had endeavoured to conciliate the interests of 
all parties in compiling his laws, he could scarcely have expected com- 
plete success. Plutarch says, he " had his visitors every day finding 
fault with some of them, and commending others, or advising certain 
additions or retrenchments. But the greater part desired a reason for 
the several articles, or a precise account of his design." Despairing of 
S 2 s 1 Athe , ns sa ^ s fy m § suc ^ var i° us applications, he determined to leave his country 
qmts t ens. ^ ^ least ten years, during which his laws might be familiarised to 

the people ; and he employed for his purpose the pretence of traffic. 
Visits Egypt. He first visited Egypt, where he conversed with the learned priests, 
and borrowed from them that fable of an Atlantic island, on which 
Plato improved. From Egypt he sailed to Cyprus, where he appears 
to have remained long enough to construct a city, and to regulate its 
institutions. His interview with Croesus, king of Lydia, is next 
related ; but, by Plutarch's admission, it was considered, in his time, 



SOLON. 



189 



as a doubtful story. It is, however, one which will never cease to be 
told for its edifying moral. Undazzled by the splendour of the 
monarch, he referred him, among others, to "a plain but worthy 
citizen of Athens " for a happier man than himself ; and counselled the 
prince not to determine on the felicity of life till he had seen its con- 
clusion. This advice is said to have been remembered by Croesus 
when he was about to be burned alive by his conqueror (if to Cyrus 
such cruelty may fairly be attributed), and became the occasion of 
saving his life. 1 

During Solon's absence, which probably extended beyond the period His return, 
he had proposed, the Athenians were divided among themselves, and 
a prey to three factious men, of whom one was Peisistratus. Solon 
at length returned, and found all parties united to do him honour. He, 
however, on account of his great age, declined the public administration 
of the government, but laboured in private to reconcile the factions. 
For a time he succeeded ; but Peisistratus, by his largesses to the com- 
mon people, secured their attachment, and, notwithstanding the oppo- 
sition of Solon, usurped the government. The legislator, on the 
failure of this last effort, placed his weapons at his door, saying, " I 
have exerted all my power to defend my countiy and to preserve her 
laws." 

Solon's friends now feared for him, but Peisistratus was disposed 
rather to conciliate than to destroy his relation. The old man, how- 
ever, would not disgrace his illustrious life by suffering it to close in 
the court of a tyrant. He presently withdrew from Athens, and, 
according to Laertius, retired to Cyprus, where he might justly claim 
the rites of hospitality. There, according to the same authority, he Death of 
died at the age of eighty years, " with this command, that his bones Solon - 
should be removed to Salamis, and, being burnt to ashes, should be 
scattered over the island." This account is treated by Plutarch as 
fabulous, though he admits its reception, among others, by Aristotle. 

Besides what has been incidentally mentioned of the honours paid to 
the legislation of Solon, it must not be forgotten that about a century 
after his death the Romans, according to Livy, 2 were attracted by the 
fame of his jurisprudence, and sent deputies to Athens to procure a 
copy of his code. 3 On the other hand, besides those moderns who 
professedly treat of laws, several writers have strongly, but not un- 
fairly, displayed the imperfections of the Athenian as well as the 
Spartan code. 4 

Yet, whatever were the excellencies or defects of the Athenian sage, 
he was, as a lawgiver, the last of the Greeks ; for, as Mr. Butler has 

1 Unfortunately chronology totally disagrees with this beautiful tale of Hero- 
dotus. 

2 Lib. iii. c. xxxi. 3 Inclytas leges Solonis describere. 

4 We may refer to Hakewill, " On the Power and Providence of God," b. 4, 
c. ii. ; L eland, in his " Necessity of the Christian Revelation," part 2, c. iii. ; and 
especially to the comparison between Moses, Lycurgus, and Solon, in vol. ix. of the 
" Prize Dissertations," by the Society of Haarlem. 



190 



SOLON. 



Comparison 
between 
Solon and 
Moses. 



Important 

cases 

unprovided 
for by 
Solon. 



Purity of the 

Mosaic 

legislation. 



remarked, with the death of Solon the era of Grecian legislation 
finishes, and the era of her military glory begins." 

In looking back upon the Grecian lawgivers, Ave find that kind of 
coincidence between the wisest of their statutes and the institutions of 
Moses, upon which it is but just and philosophical to bestow a brief 
notice. At the close of the life of Lycurgus, we ventured to point out 
the great inferiority of his various provisions to those of the Jewish 
legislator. In the life of Draco, we had occasion to advert to the 
sanguinary character of his laws. These may, indeed, have been in 
some remote respects represented inaccurately ; for it is a singular cir- 
cumstance, that while they are so frequently alluded to, scarcely any 
fragments of them have been preserved in any writer, and the general 
censure of them seems founded principally upon the authority of Aris- 
totle ; but the single circumstance of their punishing with death trivial 
offences is sufficient to warrant the conclusions of the Stagyrite, and 
cannot be justified on any plea of necessity, founded upon the temper 
of the times ; although there can be little doubt that Greece was, at 
the period of his legislation, in a state of considerable anarchy. At 
the close of the life of Solon, upon a review of those laws which have 
been preserved to us, and to which the Grecian legislators and his- 
torians have taught us to look up with such admiration, we shall find 
many important cases unprovided for, and others capriciously guarded 
by unequal enactments. If proofs appear wanting, they may be found, 
although it is unnecessary to produce them here in detail, in the sin- 
gular contradictions and waverings in his laws respecting marriage and 
adultery. Nor could he carry into completion his own design. Being 
compelled to yield to circumstances, he confessed that his laws were 
not the best possible institutions, but the best which Athens could 
then bear. In short, as in the lives of these illustrious men fable mixes 
with truth, so that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them ; dark- 
ness and light alternately appear to prevail over their legislation. In 
all these cases we miss that eternal stamp of consistency which im- 
presses so much sublimity upon the code of the Jewish legislator. His 
character and life appear in open day, unmingled with fable ; and his 
principles, although bearing in their application more immediately upon 
the people for whom he legislated, are so pure, so true, and so com- 
prehensive, that they have become a basis for legislators in almost all 
ages and countries, and must stand for ever. For can it be doubted, 
upon an impartial inspection of the fragments that remain to us of the 
Grecian lawgivers, especially when these are associated with certain 
facts in their history, that some of their wisest institutions were bor- 
rowed from traditions of the Hebrew code ? It would be too much to 
infer this, unless it were supported by other considerations ; from the 
stress which they all lay upon obedience to parents, since this might 
be said to be a law of nature, founded upon her most powerful instincts ; 
or the enactment that the first-fruits of the earth should be offered to 
the deity, since this might be referred to the dictates of reason, pre- 



FIRST SACRED WAR. 



191 



scribing to gratitude so significant an acknowledgment of the Divine 
bounty ; and the mere circumstance of these appointments being found 
in the law of Moses would not necessarily prove the origination of them 
there. But when we come to the specific provision made for the 
priests from the altar, and the injunction that the sacrificer should 
carry home a part of his offering, there appears to be a more visible 
traduction of the Grecian from the Hebrew institutions. To this we 
may add the singular circumstance that Solon wrote his laws from Solon wrote 
right to left, obviously the Hebrew method of writing ; an imitation fromright 
that would suggest the conclusion that he was acquainted with the t0 left - 
characters in which those laws, which he is supposed to have bor- 
rowed, were originally written. To strengthen the whole of this pre- 
sumption (if it be admitted to be nothing more), it is well known that 
Solon travelled into Egypt with the design of gathering the wisdom of 
former ages, previous to the formation of his laws, Egypt being at that 
time the depository of oriental science and literature, and that Lycurgus 
is acknowledged to have borrowed many of his laws from Crete, with 
which, through the Phoenicians, the Jews had evident intercourse ; and 
through the same channel the knowledge of their institutions reached 
these distinguished countries, and from them were derived to Greece. 
This conclusion accords again with the whole history of Grecian phi- 
losophy, the principles of which were, by the confession of Plato him- 
self and other eminent sages, gathered from the Syrians, another name, 
as employed by these writers, for the Hebrews, and one less obnoxious 
to then prejudices against this singular and secluded people. 1 




THE FIRST SACRED WAR. 

b. c. 595. „ 

B.C. 59o. 

Embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, reposed the Position of 
hallowed sanctuary of the Rocky Pytho ; while nearly on a level with Jjjjjj*' 1 of 
the awful shrine of the god, at no great distance, was situated the Amphic _ 
Phocian town of Crissa : above impended the precipitous ledge of the tyonic 
Phaedriades, while through the dark ravine below flowed the Pleistus. hShere. 
Amidst the solemn grandeur of tins spot, the Amphictyonic council 

1 Those who may be desirous of seeing this subject treated at large, and proved 
by the must ample and erudite researches, may be gratified by consulting Gale's 
" Court of the Gentiles," and the testimonies which relate more immediately to the 
Grecian lawgivers, collected in vol. i. book iii. chap. 9, of that work. 



192 



FIRST SACRED WAR, 



Gradual 
importance 
of Cirrha. 



Outrages of 
the people 
of Cirrha. 



was wont to hold one of its half-yearly assemblies ; the other at Ther- 
mopylae. Crissa once possessed the wide plain ranging from the foot 
of Parnassus to the Gulf of Corinth, and owned the sacred oracle of 
Delphi itself, whence accrued to the Crissseans vast profit from the 
numerous pilgrims by sea and land. In the course of time, however, 
Cirrha, the sea-port of Crissa, grew into superior importance, and the 
sanctuary of Apollo gradually expanded into the town of Delphi. The 
Delphians now took upon themselves the superintendence of the temple, 
enriching themselves by the profits arising from the visitors, not only 
of Greece, but of Italy, Sicily, and Africa, whose constant influx con- 
tributed to swell the growing wealth of Cirrha. At length, elated by 
prosperity, the Cirrhaeans, not content with levying exorbitant tolls on 
the pilgrims who passed through their port to Delphi, committed 
several outrages upon the Phocian and Argive women as they were 
returning from the temple. Upon this, prompted by the Phocians, the 
Amphictyonic council resolved to chastise the Cirrhaeans, who to their 
previous insolence now added the impiety of plundering the temple of 
They attack Delphi, in the wantonness of crime attacking the worshippers of the 
tyoni™ phiC " deity assembled in the sacred grove. A deputation of {he Amphictyons 
deputation, narrowly escaped murder at the hands of these reckless plunderers, and 
this fresh sacrilege roused against them the detestation of Greece at 
large. A joint force of Athenians, Sicyonians, and Thessalians now 
marched against the people of Cirrha, who made a formidable resist- 
ance, in which they were aided by a pestilence, which, in the ninth 
year of the war, broke out in the camp of the confederates. The 
The Amphic- Amphictyons, now almost despairing of success, consulted the oracle 
Seiphi° nSult °f Delphi, whose response directed them to send to Cos for the " Fawn 
of Gold." The ambassadors repaired to that island, stating the object 
of their mission. One of the assembly rose, and thus spoke : " I am 
the fawn and my son is the gold, who has gained every prize in 
athletic exercises." 1 Chrysus was now placed at the head of the 
besieging force, and his successful regulations for improving the health 
of the army quickly vindicated the wisdom of the oracular choice. 
After poisoning the spring which supplied the garrison with water, a 
general assault was made upon Cirrha; the males were put to the 
sword, and the women and children sold into slavery. The town was 
allowed to subsist merely as a landing-place, and the whole plain was 
consecrated to the Delphian gods. The land was doomed to remain 
untilled and un planted, subserving no use save the pasturage of cattle ; 
while the spoils of Cirrha were appropriated by the victorious confede- 
theVv°thian d rates to ^ oun ^ tne Pythian Games. Of these the Amphictyons now 
Games. took the direct superintendence, expanding the original design of the 
solemnity by adding to the musical contests the rivalry of chariot races 
and gymnastic competition. 



Resistance 
of Cirrha. 



Chrysus 
heads the 
besiegers. 



Cirrha 
taken and 
destroyed, 



Its spoils 



1 His name was, in Greek, 
arold. 



Nebros," a fawn ; his son's name, " Chrusos," or 



( 



PEISISTKATJD^. 



193 



THE PEISISTRATIDiE. 

FROM B. C. 560 TO B. C. 490. 

Notwithstanding the wise laws and prudent administration of Solon, B. c. 560. 
the Athenian government was too democratic in its tendency long to 
retain its strength. The republic was divided into three distinct Divisions 
factions, each of which, alike unawed by the voice of authority, became Fenians 
every moment more violent, clamorous, and dangerous. At the head 
of those Athenians who dwelt without the walls of the city, and com- 
posed the country people, was an Athenian, Lycurgus ; a more powerful 
party, who inhabited the sea-coast, had chosen Megacles for their 
chief; and the renowned Peisistratus was the leader of the third party, 
consisting of the lowest order of the Athenian citizens. Each of these 
chiefs, indeed, stood in some dread of the superior wisdom, the un- 
shaken honesty, and the general popularity of Solon ; each was alike 
anxious to win this illustrious lawgiver and philosopher to his own 
interest ; and with this view they all appeared earnestly to unite in 
calling him to the resumption of the supreme authority. Solon, how- 
ever, declined the invitation ; his advanced age was incompatible with Solon refuses 
the activity necessary to the proper execution of the office ; and though po^ s e r Preme 
he clearly foresaw, and even predicted, the fall of Athenian liberty, he 
yet contented himself with watching the conduct of each party, and 
applying, as occasion offered, such assuasives as he judged best adapted 
to attemper the ambition, or allay the animosity, of the contending 
chiefs. In the struggles for mastery which ensued, the superior 
strength of those under Peisistratus soon made itself felt and acknow- 
ledged; and whilst this party subdued the rival factions, their own 
liberty, and the liberties of the country, yielded to the artful demeanour, 
the splendid talents, and the restless ambition of their leader and 
favourite. This celebrated Athenian was admirably qualified for the Descrip- 
leader of a democratic faction. He was the descendant of a good pjjj^tratus 
family, possessed of an ample estate, and his talents were not only 
more brilliant and powerful than those of Lycurgus and Megacles, but 
were said even to rival those of Solon himself. He had shown his 
valour abroad in the field of Salamis, and had acquired much repu- 
tation by the part he had taken with Solon in the recovery of that 
island. At home he began his career by assuming every appearance 
of patriotism. He scattered abroad his riches with an unsparing hand, 
and practised courtesies and affability to the lowest of the citizens in a 
degree unknown before. In public, Peisistratus was always attended 
by slaves carrying bags of silver coin ; and on meeting in the streets 
any of the sickly or distressed citizens, although personally unacquainted 
with them, he would immediately bestow on them a sum sufficient for 
their comfort and relief. The gardens and orchards of this pretended 
patriot, and even those private walks which had descended to him from 
his ancestors, were thrown indiscriminately open to the public, and 
became as much the property of his countrymen as of himself. He 
[h. g.] 



194 



THE PEISISTRATID^I. 



b.c. 560. 



Aims at 
popularity. 



Conduct of 
Peisistratus. 



Artifice of 
Peisistratus. 



He is 

opposed b\ 
Solon. 



Receives a 
guard. 

b. c. 560. 



everywhere advocated, with affected zeal, the cause of complete repub- 
licanism, and eagerly seized every occasion to express his attachment to 
the constitution, and his particular admiration of the laws of Solon. 
His relationship to that eminent man afforded a still closer cover to his 
real thoughts ; and though Solon himself was not deceived, he yet 
found himself unable to suppress the ambition of the dissembler. 
" Peisistratus," repeated Solon, " would be the best citizen in Athens, 
were it not for his ambition." But in vain was this warning addressed 
to the citizens in public ; and still less was it regarded when bestowed 
upon the pretended patriot himself in private. The looks and whole 
demeanour of Peisistratus were calm, placid, and sedate; and the cha- 
racter of his ever-ready oratory mild, smooth, and persuasive. These 
artifices soon produced the intended effect upon the people, and when 
Peisistratus perceived that he had acquired a sufficient degree of their 
confidence, he practised a stratagem which was the first step towards 
annihilating the liberty of the Athenians. On a sudden, the artful 
chieftain appeared in the market-place of Athens, himself, and the 
cattle which drew his chariot, covered with wounds and blood ; and 
when the citizens assembled around him, Peisistratus appealed for pro- 
tection. He declared that he had been assailed by a ferocious band of 
his enemies, in consequence of his love for his country. A general 
assembly of the people was instantly convened. Ariston, an Athenian 
citizen, especially devoted to his interest, now proposed that Peisistratus 
should be allowed a body-guard of fifty men armed with clubs ; and 
the motion was clamorously seconded by the voice of the common 
people. Solon was the only orator who spoke in opposition to this 
dangerous proposal : " Son of Hippocrates," said he to Peisistratus, 
" you act not well the part of Homer's Ulysses, for you deceive your 
fellow-citizens ; but that hero, when he had wounded himself, prac- 
tised only on the enemies of his country." He afterwards addressed 
the assembly, and told them that if misfortune should befal the com- 
monwealth, they must not consider it as the consequence of accident, 
nor charge the gods as the authors of their calamities, but would have 
to blame their own credulity. But these arguments were of no avail 
against the popular voice; the motion passed into a law, and the 
higher order of citizens, only daring to withhold their assent by a dis- 
approving silence, Solon, at the head of these few, retired, exclaiming, 
in allusion to the speech of Peisistratus, " You doat upon his words 
and soothing speech." Thus was the first wound to the liberties of the 
Athenians inflicted by themselves ; and their constitution fell by their 
own decree. 

With the guard thus assigned to him, Peisistratus immediately 
seized the citadel of Athens, and assumed the honours of the sove- 
reignty. Shortly after, a jealousy of the still-remaining strength of the 
citizens induced this unauthorised master of Athens to practise 
another artifice upon the people. He summoned a meeting of the 
citizens to be held near the temple of the Anacium, and directed that 



THE FEISISTRATHLE. 195 

all persons should repair to the spot with arms. When the assembly B. Ci 560. 
was collected, he began to entertain them, as usual, with an oration ; 
but artfully uttered his harangue in so low an accent, that the people 
soon complained of not being able to hear him. The orator, in 
answer, asserted, that the clangor of their arms overcame and stifled 
his voice, and advised them to deposit their weapons in the portico of 
the adjoining temple. The multitude, it is said, immediately com- Disarms the 
plied with his proposition, and Peisistratus continued to amuse them Athemans - 
with a long and eloquent oration, whilst his guard, according to the 
previous orders of their master, secured the arms which had been de- 
posited without. Thus were the Athenians bereft of their last means 
of defence, and found themselves entirely at the mercy of their seducer. 
We are told, indeed, that after this notorious event, a fruitless attempt 
was made to resent the insult and to regain their liberty : an assembly 
of the people was held, and the patriotic Solon stood foremost as the p a£ io1i!im 
advocate of the constitution. He strongly inveighed against the 
duplicity of Peisistratus, and, by every possible argument, urged the 
Athenians to rise in their own defence ; but all his efforts proved un- 
successful ; he retired, testifying, as he withdrew, that, to the utmost 
of his power, he had striven for his country and her laws. Peisistratus 
is said to have sent to Solon, requiring to know what inspired him 
with the audacity which had prompted such disrespectful treatment of 
one who was the arbiter of his fate ? " My old age," replied the 
venerable patriot. 

But Peisistratus, although he had possessed himself of the supreme Peisistratus 
power by unlawful means, is said to have directed it to the ends of Jovwnment. 
justice. The laws of Solon were not only respected by him, but en- 
forced with all possible vigour ; the legislator himself was treated with 
veneration ; and some historians assert that this celebrated philosopher 
ended his days in Athens under the protection of that ruler whom he 
at first opposed with all his influence, and to the last laboured to dis- 
place. 

No sooner was the sovereignty vested in Peisistratus, than his rivals, His rivals. 
Megacles and Lycurgus, fled with their respective families and 
friends ; but, still retaining an influence in the city, the two chiefs, 
combined together and redoubled their efforts to effect their return. 
It was not long before the wishes of the confederates were accom- 
plished ; the populace, incited by the artifices of Megacles and 
Lycurgus, and provoked at their own credulity, revolted from their 
new master, and obliged him to seek shelter and protection in a Peisistratus 
foreign country. To mark their resentment more strongly, his effects bamshed - 
were publicly offered for sale ; but only one person, named Callias, B - c - ^54, 
could be found who would venture to become a purchaser. His 
triumphant enemies now entered Athens without opposition. 

Scarcely, however, had the confederated factions attained the power Factions, 
they desired, before fresh jealousies arose between them. Megacles, 
disgusted with Lycurgus, made overtures to the banished Peisistratus, 

o 2 



1 



196 



THE PEISISTRATID^. 



B. 0. 554. 



Restoration of 
Peisistratus. 

b. c. 548. 



Family 
connections. 



Peisistratus 

a^ain 

expelled. 

B. C. 547. 



The 

l'eisistratidae 
advance on 
Attica. 



who readily accepted the proposed alliance. On the part of Megacles 
it was stipulated, that he should restore Peisistratus to the sovereignty ; 
and Peisistratus engaged to marry the daughter of Megacles ; thus 
cementing the new connection, and elevating the family of his former 
rival into a participation of his honours and his power. These two 
chiefs were well acquainted with the disposition of the people whom 
they undertook to govern: they were aware how little force could 
avail, but they were also fully sensible how easily they might be 
softened by artifice into credulity. They selected, as the agent in 
their successful fraud, a woman from a mean and almost unknown 
family. This woman, named Phya, the daughter of one Socrates, 
they seated by the side of Peisistratus, in a superb chariot, dressed in 
armour, and in all the appropriate accoutrements of the goddess 
Athene, whom she was designed to represent. Phya was tall and 
graceful in her person, and her features were warlike and commanding. 
The chariot now moved slowly towards the city, while heralds ran 
before it, exclaiming to the people, " Give a kind reception, Athenians, 
to your citizen Peisistratus, who is so highly honoured by the goddess 
Athene, that she herself deigns to restore him to your wishes." By 
this ridiculous project was the sovereignty of Athens restored to 
Peisistratus. 

Peisistratus, reinstated in his power, first showed his gratitude to 
Phya, by giving her in marriage to Hipparchus, his son ; he then 
fulfilled his contract with Megacles, by nominally espousing the 
daughter of that chief. It was not long, however, before Peisistratus 
again incurred the warm opposition of Megacles. He set on foot a 
negotiation with some discontented citizens, and took his measures so 
effectually, that Peisistratus, perceiving the rising tumult, again 
betook himself to a voluntary exile, and found an asylum in Eretria. 

In his banishment the expelled ruler busied himself solely in form- 
ing alliances with the surrounding states, and at length thought 
himself strong enough to determine on reducing Athens by force of 
arms ; a resolution in which he was confirmed by his sons Hippias 
and Hipparchus. The strength of the Peisistratidas was rendered 
formidable by the assistance of the neighbouring cities ; bodies of troops 
were levied by the Argives, who joined their party ; Lygdamis, a 
Naxian, advanced a large sum in the cause, and came forward with 
his personal services and a large number of soldiers who followed 
his fortunes. But the Theban troops composed by far the greatest 
part of the invading army. Thus supported, in the eleventh year of 
their banishment, the Peisistratidae marched from Eretria into Attica, 
and possessed themselves, without a struggle, of the village of Mara- 
thon, which stood only ten miles from the city of Athens. Here they 
were encouraged by the junction of many Athenian citizens. Peisis- 
tratus in the mean time having advanced from Marathon, and halted 
his army before the temple of the Pallenian Mercury, one Amphilytus, 
a prophet of Acarnania, addressed to the chieftain an oracle in hexa- 



THE PEISISTKATID^. 



197 



meter verse, which mysteriously alluded to the unguarded and open B. c. 547. 
state of the Athenian camp. With characteristic quickness Peisis- 
tratus instantly comprehended the allusion of the oracle, and declaring 
aloud that he accepted the omen, pushed his army forward. He 
reached the camp in an auspicious hour — the army had dined, and 
they were all either asleep, or amusing themselves with dice. In this 
unguarded and defenceless state they were easily routed ; and the genius 
of Peisistratus manifested itself still more in the flight which succeeded 
than in the conflict itself. He forbade all slaughter, and caused his 
sons Hippias and Hipparchus to ride swiftly before and amongst the 
fugitives, loudly calling to them that they had nothing to fear from 
their fellow-citizen Peisistratus, and that every man might repair in 
peace and in safety to his own home. 

After this Peisistratus became a third time master of the Athenian His 
state ; and, by the wisdom and lenity of his measures, so firmly esta- restorat,on - 
blished himself in the government, that he never more was materially B. c. 537. 
disturbed. During the whole of his administration he continued to 
enforce the laws of Solon ; to which he added some important regu- 
lations of his own for the encouragement of agricultural pursuits. The 
people in general soon began to feel the immense advantages of this 
domestic discipline ; and the cultivation of the Athenian territories 
proceeded with great rapidity. Attica became fruitful in corn, an 
essential of life which the people had been accustomed to buy at a 
dear rate from other nations ; and the beautiful and productive olive- 
tree sprang up around the city. Peisistratus even regulated the dress 
of the Athenians ; and one-tenth part of every man's rents and pro- His taxes, 
duce of his grounds was levied upon his countrymen. That this tax, 
however, was by no means rigidly enforced, is evident by an anecdote 
which, at the same time, affords an instance of the generosity and 
clemency of the monarch himself. Peisistratus, whilst riding across 
the country, perceived an aged rustic busied in gathering some herbs 
amongst the rocks ; with his accustomed affability, he accosted the 
labourer, and, to an inquiry concerning the nature of his employment, 
received the surly and uncouth answer, " that he was gathering wild 
herbs and sage-leaves, but that of those even Peisistratus was to be 
paid the tenth part." The ruler smiled, and pursued his journey in 
silence ; but, when returned to the city, he remitted the imposed duty 
to the labourer. 

Thus firmly seated on the throne, Peisistratus aimed at exhibiting 
the princely virtues of his station ; and, maintaining due order amongst 
others, exhibited frequently, even in his own person, the most rigid 
observance of the laws. Hearing that he was to be accused in the His conde- 
court of the Areopagus of murder, he appeared there without attend- tension, 
ants, as a private person, ready to submit to the judgment of the 
people, and succeeded in convincing the court that the accusation was 
groundless. His love of the arts and of literature, induced him to His love of 
adorn the city with some elegant public buildings ; he built and well- scieQ ce. 



198 



THE PEISISTRATHLE. 



b. c. 537. furnished a library for public use ; and it was Peisistratus who claims 
the honour of having digested the poems of Homer into the form 
under which they now appear. In other respects, he proved himself 
a great patron of learning and the arts : he was the intimate friend of 
Crotoniates, the epic poet, who wrote the adventures of the Argonauts ; 
and there is good reason to suppose, that the celebrated fabulist, iEsop, 
was his friend and favourite. The famous temple of the Pythian 
Apollo was founded by this magnificent prince : he reduced to the 
Athenian control the city of Sigeum, and greatly improved the sacred 
island of Delos. In a word, he wanted only a lawful title to the 
sovereignty which he exercised to have left his name to posterity as one 
of the most splendid examples of princely virtue. Over his not un- 
frequently admiring subjects, Peisistratus reigned in Athens, from his 
first usurpation of authority, including his exile, to the time of his 
His death, death, thirty-three years ; at the expiration of which he died peaceably 
b. c. 527. at Athens, leaving his sons Hipparchus and Hippias to succeed him in 
the government. 

Of Hipparchus and Hippias, the two sons of Peisistratus, it is un- 
His certain which was entitled to the claim arising; from priority of birth : 

successors* 

Hipparchus we possess, however, records sufficiently full to enable us to judge of 
and Hippias. ^heir character and conduct. As they reigned conjointly, they followed, 
in all respects, the principles and maxims of their father's government. 
Hipparchus was particularly distinguished by his evenness of temper 
and his suavity of manners. He was not only a great encourager of 
literature, but himself a considerable scholar. Simonides, the elegiac 
poet of Ceos, almost constantly near his person, was a peculiar 
favourite ; and he despatched a galley on purpose to bring the cele- 
brated Anacreon to Athens. At the great Panathenaea, Hipparchus 
caused the rhapsodists to sing all the poems of Homer, that the Athe- 
nians might be generally instructed and entertained by them. In order 
to impress upon the citizens certain principles of morality he caused to 
be erected in the city many statutes of Hermes, and inscribed them 
with sentiments full of truth and virtue. " Deceive not thy friend" 
was found upon one statue ; and the words, " Be thou strictly just" 
upon another. 

Their joint i n the exercise of these virtues, the reign of Hipparchus and 
soverei e nty. jj-pp-^ con ti n ued for some time in peace, and afforded every prospect 
of permanence. But an unforeseen event suddenly cut off the former 
Conspiracy prince, and menaced the reign and fife of the latter. A conspiracy 
a°ainst them was ^ orme( ^ against both sovereigns ; and although the causes which 
ams ' induced it are differently related, the event itself is incontrovertible. 

Harmodius and Aristogiton, names held sacred by the Athenians in 
after times, were young men of singular beauty, and sincerely 
attached to each other. These noble youths were the chief agitators 
of the plot, and relying upon the assistance of the Athenian people, 
admitted only a comparatively small number of confederates. The 
day arrived for accomplishing their design, when Harmodius and 



THE PEISISTRATID^. 



199 



Aristogiton perceived, at a distance, one of the conspirators talking B. c. 527. 
familiarly with Hippias. Alarmed at this circumstance, and naturally- 
suspecting that their scheme was betrayed, they prematurely attacked Assassina- 
Hipparchus alone, who was near them ; Hippias arrived with his ffipparchus, 
guards too late indeed to rescue, but sufficiently prompt to revenge b. c. 514. 
the assassination of his brother. Harmodius was killed on the spot, 
and Aristogiton taken prisoner. 

Hippias, when he felt himself possesssd of the sole sovereignty, Tyranny of 
gave a loose to a disposition which had before been restrained and Hl PP ,as - 
softened by his coadjutor in the empire. Treating the Athenians with 
a severity unknown to them in the times of his rather or his brother, 
he first wreaked his vengeance upon the captive Aristogiton, who 
bore every species of torture with the fortitude of a hero. In the 
midst of his agonies he accused several persons of being joined with 
him in the late conspiracy, and their names had every appearance of 
being forced from him by the excess of pain : these persons were 
instantly executed, in consequence of his information, but were after- 
wards discovered to have been amongst the best and firmest sup- 
porters of the Peisistratidse. Aristogiton being interrogated con- 
cerning other individuals, is said to have died replying, " that he knew 
no other person deserving death excepting Hippias himself." Another 
extraordinary instance of heroism was found in the person of one 
Lecena, a mistress of Aristogiton, who bore the tortures inflicted upon 
her by the tyrant for a considerable time, and at last bit off her tongue 
lest it should betray, in the excess of her agony, anything to the pre- 
judice of him she loved. The conspiracy being fully defeated, Hip- Hippias 
pias, no longer confiding in the love of his subjects, sought foreign JJ ks forei & n 
assistance, and endeavoured to establish his authority by the most B c §n 
coercive measures. He increased his revenue by every possible exac- 
tion ; and, not satisfied with the twentieth part of every man's income, 
which he had hitherto required, he compelled the citizens to bring 
into his treasury all their silver money, which he sent into circulation, 
much diminished in weight and in value, in the shape of a new 
coinage. 

In the meantime Megacles and his family, called the Alcmae- 
onidse, on account of their descent from Alcmaeon, being banished from 
Athens on the restoration of Peisistratus, had established themselves 
at Lipsydrum, in Paeonia. Here they gave refuge to all those who 
fled from Attica discontented with the government of Hippias, the 
number of whom increased daily. Every opportunity of increasing conspiracy 
the disturbances of Attica was readily embraced by these exiles ; nor ^^^.^ 
were the Alcmaeonidae wanting in means to effect the purpose. It so 
happened that the Amphictyons had contracted with the Alcmasonidae 
for the rebuilding of the temple of Apollo, at Delphi. This contract 
they performed in a manner exceedingly sumptuous; and besides 
accomplishing what they had promised, they constructed the facade 
with Parian marble, instead of common stone. By this display of 



200 



the peisistratim:. 



B.C. 511. 



Invasion hy 
the Lacedee- 



Deposition 
of Hippias. 

b. c. 510. 



Statues of 

Harmodius 

and 

Aristogiton. 



generosity they gained considerable reputation; but their treasures 
were employed still more . advantageously for themselves, wheD, by 
presents of various kinds, they had corrupted the Pythian priestess of 
the temple, who delivered the sacred oracles. To all the Lacedae- 
monians the Pythia incessantly denounced the government of Hippias 
as tyrannical and cruel ; and that people, then the most powerful of the 
Grecian states, stimulated into action, raised an army, under the com- 
mand of Anchimolius, to invade Attica. Hippias, on the information 
of these proceedings, sent to the Thessalians, who immediately 
answered the application by supplying him with a thousand horse, 
commanded by Cineas a Thessalian prince. The army of Anchimolius, 
which had been transported by sea, had scarcely landed in Attica 
before Hippias, and his confederate Thessalians, suddenly attacked and 
routed them : their general himself was slain in the contest ; and so 
complete was the victory, that the shattered remains of his army with 
difficulty escaped the slaughter by reaching their ships. 

This defeat, however, only irritated the enemies of Hippias, and 
Cleomenes, king of Sparta, commanding another Lacedaemonian army, 
soon appeared in Attica. Defeating with ease the Thessalian horse on 
the frontiers of the country, he pursued his march unopposed, and laid 
siege to the Pelasgian fortress, within which the Athenian tyrant had 
taken refuge. Here, however, the prospect of success on the part of 
Cleomenes appeared at least doubtful. Hippias and his garrison were 
strongly fortified, and amply supplied with provision, whilst the be- 
sieging force were nearly destitute of even-thing. It is, therefore, 
probable that Cleomenes would have been obliged to measure back his 
steps to Sparta with disgrace, had not the means which Hippias took 
for his greater safety proved his total ruin. The better to secure his 
children, he attempted to send them out of Attica ; and they had no 
sooner left the fortress than they fell into the hands of the Lacedaemo- 
nians. This was a rich prize to the captors, who demanded, as the 
only terms of their ransom, that Hippias, his family, and adherents, 
should in five days quit the territories of Athens. These conditions 
were accepted by the besieged. The king of Macedonia offered them 
a refuge in his dominions; and their active allies, the Thessalians, 
pressed upon the exiles a like proposal. But Hippias and his family 
retired to the city of Sigeum, preferring that place, as more certainly 
devoted to their interest. Thus ended the sovereignty of the Peisis- 
tratidse over Athens ; the reign of Hippias, after the death of Hip- 
parchus, continuing only three years. On the expulsion of its master, 
the spirit of liberty, which had been with difficulty repressed, diffused 
itself throughout Athens, exhibiting everywhere the most inextinguish- 
able rancour against the fallen family, and the highest admiration of 
their opponents. To the slaughtered conspirators, Harmodius and 
Aristogiton, the Athenians decreed immortal honours. They employed 
the most exquisite of their sculptors, Praxiteles, to erect brazen statues 
of these heroes in the forum; they caused verses in their praise to be 



THE PEISISTRATID-E. 



201 



sung at the sacred festivals of the Panathenaea : and they granted several B. C. 510. 

honourable privileges to their descendants. But their aversion to the 

late dynasty carried them still further ; the figure of a lioness without 

a tongue was set up in a public place at Athens, with an inscription 

on it, in honour of Lecena, the mistress of Aristogiton, and in allusion 

to her name as well as to her heroism in biting off her tongue when 

under the torture. From this time forward, not only were the Peisi- 

stratidse universally known by the name of tyrants, but the term king 

was always used synonymously with that of tyrant ; so that the virtues 

of a sovereign did not shield him from the stigmatising appellation. 

Uncontrolled public liberty was now established in Athens ; but Divisions at 
two different factions quickly divided Attica : the Alcmaeonidse, a Athens * 
popular party led by Clysthenes, were opposed to the party of the 
nobles of Athens, at the head of which appeared Isagoras, a man 
of noble family and connections. The former leader possessing great 
talent, introduced the mode of popular condemnation by Ostracism, 
augmented the number of the tribes of the people, and increased the 
senate to five hundred. These measures nearly extinguished the rights 
of the aristocracy of Athens ; Isagoras was obliged to quit the city, 
and to seek refuge in Sparta, where the Lacedaemonians readily listened 
to his proposals. The Spartan king, Cleomenes, now despatched a cieomenes 
herald to Athens, demanding the restoration of his friend, and the Jjjf to 
instant banishment of Clysthenes and the Alcmseonidaa, or denouncing Sparta, 
war in case of a refusal. The unexpected compliance of the Athenians 
now obliged Cleomenes to avow his real object to be that of establish- 
ing another form of government in Athens, to effect which he at once 
marched his army to the city, and banished seven hundred Athenians 
from Attica. He afterwards proceeded to invest Isagoras, with three 
hundred chosen senators, in the authorities of the government, until 
these measures roused the Athenians once more to arms. Cleomenes 
and Isagoras, with their invading force, were now obliged, in their 
torn, to give way, and they took refuge in the citadel of Athens, 
where for two days they were closely besieged. On the third day they 
agreed upon conditions of surrender, which were, that all the followers 
of Cleomenes and Isagoras should give up the fort, renounce their pre- 
tensions to the Athenian government, and be permitted to retire unmo- 
lested from Attica. The Spartans now quitted the fort; but the 
Athenians, regardless of their public faith, fell on all such of the 
Spartan army as they could reach, and sacrificed many to their indis- 
criminate fury. 

The Athenian people, now unrestrained in their choice of a govern- The Mo- 
ment, immediately decreed the recall of their exiles and of the Alcmaeo- maeonidae. 
nidaa, and collected all their force, in order to meet the war which they 
anticipated from the resentment of Cleomenes and Isagoras. On the other 
side, the exiled chief and the Spartan king were not idle ; they prepared 
the whole disposable troops of their own city, and made alliances 
throughout all Peloponnesus, with the intention of again invading 



202 



THE PEISISTRATTD^. 



B.C. 510. Athens, But their army was composed of too many nations, and 
influenced by too various interests, to retain its energy ; and, after 
repeated defections, Cleomenes and Isagoras found themselves so much 
weakened that they were obliged to abandon their allies, the Boeotians 
and Chalcidians, over whom an easy victory was achieved by the 
Athenians. 

Defeat of The various disappointments of Cleomenes served but the more to 
leomenes. j^^jg ^jg resei] tment against the Athenians. During his stay in Attica, 
he had become possessed of certain oracles which predicted that Athens 
should in time become the rival of Sparta. He had discovered too, at 
the same time, the corruption of the Delphic oracles by Clysthenes 
against Hippias. These he industriously circulated amongst his coun- 
trymen, to excite their jealousy against the common enemy ; and the 
effect was answerable to his wishes. Hippias, who in the meantime 
was not destitute of friends in Sparta, was now sent for in all haste 
from Sigeum. On his arrival, he found the Lacedaemonian kings in 
consultation upon the proposal of restoring him to the sovereignty of 
Athens ; but the Corinthian ambassador, Sosicles, fully persuaded the 
other confederates of the Spartans to reject it, and thus Cleomenes and 
his party were obliged reluctantly to abandon the cause of Hippias. 
Disappoint- The disappointed prince again returned to Sigeum, still occupying 
Hippias. himself with schemes for the future, and encouraging himself with 
the hopes of one day regaining the dominions he had lost. Mean- 
while, the war between the people of iEgina, the confederates of the 
Boeotians, and the Athenians, continued with varied success. Darius, 
the Persian king, having demanded earth and water, as tokens of sub- 
mission from the different states of Greece, the iEginaeans alone com- 
plied with the requisition, hoping for the protection of that monarch 
against Athens. This submission was represented by the Athenians 
to the other states of Greece as a gross instance of treachery, and the 
Lacedaemonians sent their king, Cleomenes, to iEgina, with orders to 
bring back as prisoners those persons who were the principal advisers 
of this measure. But a disturbance which occurred in Sparta during 
his absence, at the head of which was Demaratus, the other king, 
induced Cleomenes to return thither without having effected his object. 
These tumults were, however, soon quelled by the dethronement of 
Demaratus, and the elevation of Leotychides, to act as his royal col- 
league, shortly after which Cleomenes died. Meanwhile, the war 
between Athens and the people of iEgina continued unabated. An 
Athenian galley, which was annually sent to Delos, lay at anchor 
at Sunium, where the iEginaeans seized it, with many of the Athenian 
nobility on board : the Athenians, in their turn, requested their allies, 
the Corinthians, to furnish them with a squadron of ships. This was 
at a critical moment for the iEginaeans ; Nicodromus, an eminent man 
of that nation, offered to betray his country to its enemies, and to 
appear in arms in their favour as soon as the Athenian fleet should 
appear off the coast. The treason was accepted ; but the treaty with 



THE PEISISTRATID^!. 



203 



the Corinthians, whose laws forbade them to lend their ships, and who B. c. 510., 
at last only evaded them by selling to their allies, the Athenians, five 
galleys, caused a delay in the expedition, which defeated its object ; and 
Nicodromus, having risen in arms against his country at the appointed 
time, looked in vain for the promised succour, and found himself com- 
pelled to fly to Athens for refuge. 

Some time before these events, the Athenians had imprudently lis- Outrage 
tened to Aristagoras, the Milesian, who, having fled from Ionia, where upon Persia * 
he had in vain endeavoured to excite an insurrection, came, as his last B - c * ^00. 
resource, to Attica, soliciting help. The Athenians granted him twenty 
ships, and placed them under the command of Melanthius, one of their 
nobles. This force, united with the followers of Aristagoras, made 
considerable ravages on the surrounding country, and, amongst other 
places, took and sacked the town of Sardis. These outrages on the 
Ionian territory, then under the dominion of Persia, much incensed 
Darius. But these were not the only excitements to the war with 
Persia. The exiled Hippias had now attained to an advanced age ; 
but the recollection of his youthful days, passed in the pomp of 
power, had not forsaken him. After his return from Lacedsemon, he 
had applied to Artaphernes, the Persian governor of the adjacent pro- 
vinces, and endeavoured to provoke him to make war upon Attica. 
In order to influence this minister still further, he distinctly promised, Policy of 
that should he be reinstated on the throne of Athens by the means of Hi PP ias - 
Persia, he would hold his kingdom subservient to the power of Darius. 
To these overtures of Hippias, the Persian lent a favourable ear, 
although the Athenians, aware of the intrigues of their late usurper, 
immediately deputed ambassadors to Artaphernes, entreating him to 
beware of the proposals of an exiled tyrant. The Persian officer 
answered, in haughty terms, " that if the Athenians would have peace 
with the great king, they must consent to receive Hippias as their 
sovereign," This reply irritated the Athenians to open expressions of 
hostility, and, with a view of engrossing the attention of Darius to 
enemies nearer home, they immediately resolved to render every assist- 
ance in their power to the revolted Ionians under Aristagoras ; and 
thus, through various co-operating causes, the intrigues of Hippias 
produced the Ionian, and that again the great Persian war with Athens 
and the other states of Greece. 

The first attempt of the Persian monarch against Greece was made Persian war. 
by a force under the command of Mardonius ; but the fleet in which b. c. 492. 
it sailed was dispersed and disabled by a storm as it doubled the pro- 
montory of Athos ; while the Athenians obtained a salutary respite 
from a conflict for which, at that time, they were ill prepared. 
Another and a more considerable army soon appeared under the com- 
mand of Datis and Artaphernes the younger, the son of the governor 
of that name. These commanders, learning caution from the misfor- 
tunes of Mardonius, led their troops by land through the plains of 
Cilicia, and, passing thence by the Cyclades to Eubcea, appeared in 



204 



THE PEISISTRATID^. 



b. c. 492. undiminished force before the city of Eretria. As the commission of 
the Persian commanders was utterly to destroy the cities of Eretria 
and Athens, and bring away the inhabitants of both places as slaves 
to the Persian king, the Athenians ordered a body of 4000 men to 
march to the aid of their besieged allies ; but at this crisis of affairs, 
the unsteady nature of its government proved at once fatal to the city 
of Eretria itself, and highly dangerous to the other states of Greece. 
The people of that city were disunited in their sentiments respecting 
the Persian king ; and during the confusion produced by these dis- 
putes, Nothon, the son of JSschines, wisely informed the Athenian 
army of the internal disturbances at Eretria, and urged them to return 
The Persians for the protection of their own country, as the preservation of his was 
victorious. l 10 peless. The Athenian army at once retreated to Oropus, a town of 
Boeotia ; and Eretria, betrayed by its own citizens, was sacked and 
burnt to the ground by the Persians. 
^MaraS? victorious forces of Darius now continued their march into 

Greece unopposed, and, by the advice of the exiled Hippias, the in- 
vading army encamped on the extensive plains of Marathon, with a 
view of offering battle to the Grecians on a spot where the Persian 
light troops and their numerous bodies of horse might act with advan- 
tage. This choice of their ground they carried into effect unmolested 
— the result forms one of the proudest tales of Grecian history. 

The Athenians, of all others, had most cause to dread the resent- 
ment of Darius ; and, as his troops penetrated into the interior, no 
effort was left untried to raise a force capable of repelling them. They 
sent deputies to the different states of Greece around, but with little 
success. To the Lacedaemonians they dispatched Phidippides, an 
especial messenger, who in two days performed the journey from 
Athens to Sparta, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. In an 
energetic speech he addressed the Spartans, who appeared to be roused, 
and prepared to march to the assistance of their rival state ; but whe- 
ther from any latent jealousy, or in alleged veneration of a law which 
forbade them to march but on the full of the moon, they delayed their 
expedition for five days, and thus bore no part in the ensuing conflick- 
The The Athenians were thus left nearly alone in the contest; for the 

inaidedby glory of the field of Marathon was wholly divided between themselves 
Sparta. the Platseans, who, in gratitude for former protection, added a 

body of 1,000 men to the army. Their united strength consisted of only 
10,000 men. On the other side, the invading army, at the least com- 
putation, reckoned 100,000 men, decuple the number of the little 
opposing band of patriots. 

The organization of the allied Grecian army appears to have been 
dictated by the same jealousy of absolute power which breathed in the 
constitution of their republics. The supreme command was distributed 
amongst ten officers, each of equal rank, and each of whom com- 
manded the army for a single day ; whilst, at the same time, one of 
their highest civil magistrates, an Archon, accompanied them, and 



THE PEISISTRATIDJE. 



205 



decided all differences which might occur, under the title and authority B. c. -192. 
of a Polemarch. It was fortunate for Athens that, at this important 
juncture, she had intrusted her defence to men not only of superior 
talent, but of unimpeachable honesty. Callimachus of Aphidna was the 
Polemarch, and Miltiades, Aristides, and Themistocles, names renowned 
in history, were amongst the commanders. A difference of opinion Difference 
arose amongst the generals. On one side a defensive warfare was aLong the 
recommended : it was urged, that if the fastnesses of their country were generals, 
defended, their invaders would waste their strength by degrees as they 
advanced, and time would be given to collect the states of Greece to 
assist the general cause. On the contrary, Miltiades, in his speech 
to the Polemarch, eloquently enforced the arguments for immediate 
battle : " You alone, Callimachus," exclaimed this zealous chief- 
tain, " must now determine either to see the Athenians reduced to 
the condition of slaves, or, by preserving the liberty of your country, 
raise an eternal monument to your own fame, surpassing the glory even 
of Harmodius and Aristoglton. Never were the Athenians, your coun- 
trymen, in so imminent a danger of destruction. If we decline a battle, 
I foresee some great dissension will shake the fidelity of the army ; but 
if we fight before the corrupting gold of the Persian tyrant steals into 
the hearts of our soldiers, from the favour of the gods we may confi- 
dently anticipate a victory. The event is in your choice, and entirely 
depends upon your decision. Support my opinion with your power 
and influence ; you will see your country free, and Athens elevated to 
the most illustrious place in Greece." 

This eloquent appeal to his patriotism decided the Polemarch The opinion 
Callimachus, who instantly pronounced in favour of an immediate pjCTai£ des 
battle ; when Aristides, fearing the weakness of a divided command, 
was the first who resigned his authority to Miltiades ; the other gene- 
rals instantly followed his example. Miltiades himself, although he 
nominally accepted their offers, wisely declined to engage until the 
return of his regular day of command, fearful that some latent sparks 
of jealousy or envy might yet retard the general operations on so im- 
portant an occasion. 

The day at length arrived on which the fate of Athens was to be Battle of 
decided. Miltiades had well considered the kind of enemy with whom Marathon - 
he had to contend. To the Persian cavalry, the javelin-men, and the B - c - ^90. 
light-armed archers, famed for the rapidity of their attack and the 
celerity of their retreat, he was careful to oppose every possible 
obstacle. He had drawn the armies to the most confined place of 
combat, on the vast Marathonian plain. A morass skirted the ground 
on the one side, and a mountain on the other. To add to these 
natural obstacles, large trees had been felled and thrown across the 
roads, and trenches cut in every direction ; obstructions which, while 
they were well calculated to distress the movements of the enemy, were 
easily surmounted by the steadiness and strength of the Grecian array. 
Considerable difficulties, however, were yet to be overcome. The long 



200 



THE PEISISTRATID^. 



B. c. 490. line of the Persian army was to have some opposing force presented to 
it in its whole extent ; for although the two wings of the Grecians were 
rendered formidable by the heavy phalanx, and thus fronted the Persian 
wings in no unequal strength, the centre of their adversaries was left 
unopposed, except by the Athenian light troops, joined by a number 
of slaves, who had been hastily armed for the purpose, and on whose 
valour and fidelity Miltiades could scarcely rely. The Grecian 
general was thus reduced to the dilemma either of leaving the Persian 
centre totally unresisted, or of opposing to it his most inefficient troops. 
As the least of the two evils, he chose the latter, and the event was 
answerable to his expectations. The two wings of the Athenian army 
advanced slowly, but firmly, to the attack. To the missile weapons of 
the Persians they returned not a single dart, but pressed onward in one 
heavy and compact body. Then availing themselves of their weapons 
for close attack, they soon obliged the Persians on the right and left to 
abandon the field, and seek for shelter in their ships, many of which 
even were destroyed by the Greeks. But though the greater part of 
the Persians was thus routed, much was yet to be achieved to make 
Defeat of the the victory complete. The centre of the Greeks had given w T ay to 
Persians. their adversaries, and a large body of the Persians yet remained on the 
field, not only unconquered, but in their turn victorious. As he had 
foreseen, so Miltiades had prepared for this event. The Grecian wings 
now closed, by a skilful evolution, from both sides of the field, upon 
the remaining body of the Persians, whom, after a desperate conflict, 
they utterly annihilated. 

Thus w T as this great battle won, by a mere handful of men, 
animated with the consciousness of fighting for liberty, against an 
immense multitude of mercenary troops, scarcely any of whom 
possessed the least degree of self-interest in the combat beyond 
their common thirst for plunder. Indeed, the pillage with which the 
Persians had already been loaded from the conquest of Eretria appears 
to have been no light cause of their easy defeat ; for when they were 
more seriously opposed by the Greek Hoplitais than they expected to 
have been, many of them immediately gave up all thoughts of further 
conquest, and retreated at once to their ships, to secure their ill-gotten 
treasure. 

They hasten But although the Persians had thus lost the field of Marathon, those 
to Athens. ^ o escaped in the ships were in sufficient force to have taken and 
plundered the unprotected city of Athens. With this intention, and 
invited, as some represent, by the faction of the Alcmseonida?, their fleet 
now doubled Cape Sunium, and sailed towards the city. Miltiades, 
however, apprehending their design, left his colleague Aristides with 
1,000 men, to guard the prisoners at Marathon, and with the other 
part of their allied forces, hastening homewards, appeared before the 
gates of the temple of Heracles, very near Athens, some time before 
the Persian fleet could by any possibility reach the Attic shore. Thus 
disappointed, the Persians, with the shattered remains of their army, 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



207 



sailed direct for Asia, closing the first unfortunate attempt of the B. C. 490. 
" great king" upon the liberty of the states of Greece. abandon knS 

Such was the commencement of that bright career of glory in which Greece. 
Athens afterwards shone so conspicuously amongst the Grecian states. 
Two of the Athenian commanders were slain ; Callimachus, the Pole- 
march, fell, after having displayed all the skill and valour required 
from his exalted rank ; and Stesileus, the son of Thrasylaus, one of the 
ten co-generals of the army. Some other Athenians, likewise, greatly 
distinguished themselves in the battle. Cynsegeirus, the son of Eu- 
phorion, having pursued the Persians to their ships, seized on one of 
them, in which the enemy were about to sail, with both his hands, 
which were immediately struck off by the blow of an axe, and he gave 
up his hold only with his life. Others relate this story more marvel- 
lously : they say that this Cynsegeirus, having performed extraordinary 
feats of valour in the battle, pursued the flying enemy to the shore, and 
seized on a ship which was ready to sail with his right hand ; that this 
being instantly hewed off, he detained the vessel for some time with 
his left hand ; and being at last deprived of both, he made use of his 
teeth to keep his hold, until he sunk, covered with wounds, by mere 
exhaustion. 

The Athenians reaped another important advantage from their vic- 
tory ; for on the field of Marathon the life, the hopes, and the family 
of the Peisistratidae were utterly extinguished. At Marathon the exiled 
Hippias, the last of his family, the instigator of the invasion, fell ; and 
with him fell the fears of the Athenian people. Athens was now 
regarded amongst the states of Greece as equal, if not superior, in 
patriotism and valour even to Sparta herself ; and although we have The 
no particular instances recorded of the behaviour of the Platseans, vet P 1 ^^ 113 

A ' J UlriClC 

the Athenians were so well satisfied with their brave allies, that a freeman of 
decree was immediately passed, making that people free of the city of Athens - 
Athens. 

We now proceed to notice the Ionic Revolt, one of the most 
powerful causes that led to the great Persian war. 

THE IONIC REVOLT. 
b. c. 500. 

Artaphernes, the brother of Darius, had been invested by that sove- b. c. 500. 
reign with the full command of the western part of Asia Minor ; and the Artaphernes, 
Greek cities upon the sea-board had generally a domestic despot settled w^e^Asia 
in each : Aristagoras ruled in Miletus. This brilliant dependency was Minor, 
at this time vigorously flourishing, and the undoubted head of Ionia. 

In the year 500 B.C., Hippias, the exiled tyrant, made his appear- Proposals of 
ance at Sardis, as a petitioner before Artaphernes. His proposals were ArtLphernr^. 
couched under a tempting form, since he urged his own restoration to 
power on the promise of holding Athens under the crown of Persia. 



208 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



b. C. 490. 



Arisfagoras 
repairs to 
Sardis. 



Aristagoras is 
supported by 
the Persian 
satrap. 



The 

^saxians are 
forewarned. 



Aristagoras 
revolts from 
Persia. 



Device of 
Hi 



Hecataeus 
opposes the 
revolt. 



The Spartans had previously rejected his offers, and the baffled prince 
had now recourse to Artaphernes. His suit was here more successful, 
for the satrap returned a threatening menace, commanding the Athe- 
nians to receive Hippias back again, as they valued their safety. In 
furtherance of his ultimate design upon Athens, a design which he 
early cherished, he determined to conquer the isle of Naxos. Wealthy,, 
prosperous, and populous, and possessed of a force of 8,000 Hoplitais, 
this island was well defended by its navy, as well as infantry. The 
Naxian exiles, who had been expelled by a popular rising, applied at 
this juncture to Aristagoras, who craftily resolved to embark Arta- 
phernes in the same project. Aristagoras, therefore, repaired to Sardis, 
making the most plausible representations of the facility with which 
Naxos, Andros, Paros, Tenos, and the rest of the Cyclades could be 
reduced. He offered, at the same time, to effect these conquests, and 
to bear the entire charge of an armament of 100 ships, if a force of 
that amount were granted to him. The Persian satrap readily entered 
into his proposals, promising him in the following spring double the 
force required ; and instantly despatching his envoy to Darius, a 
powerful armament was placed under the orders of Aristagoras, with 
the Persian Megabates in command. A serious dissension, however, 
soon arose between the chiefs of the expedition ; and the Persian, with 
true oriental duplicity, determined to frustrate the enterprise, in order 
to avenge himself on Aristagoras. The fleet was at this time under 
full sail for Naxos; at nightfall Megabates forwarded to the island 
secret information of the forthcoming attack. The islanders, thus 
effectually forewarned, had made excellent preparations for a vigorous 
defence, so that, after a useless siege of four months, the unsuccessful 
armament sailed back to the Ionian coast. The complete failure of the 
expedition threatened the ruin of Aristagoras and the vengeance of the 
Persian court : a revolt from that power seemed indispensable to his 
safety. At this critical period his movements were quickened by the 
arrival of a messenger despatched by Histiaeus, his father-in-law, then 
detained at the court of Susa. That chief was surrounded by Persian 
spies, and though eager to urge Ins son-in-law to a revolt, dared not trust 
to any written communication : danger and ingenuity furnished a resource. 
The head of a faithful slave was shaved, the necessary words branded 
upon it, and when the hair was again grown, he was despatched to 
Miletus, with an intimation that he should be again shaved and exa- 
mined. Miletus was now the active focus of revolt, and the chief par- 
tisans of the rising; were instantly convoked by Aristagoras. Hecataeus, 
the historian, was the only chief who opposed it ; his arguments and 
advice were alike disregarded, and Aristagoras and his partisans, having 
resolved upon an immediate movement, determined to depose the 
various despots throughout the cities of Asiatic Greece, as a first step 
to conciliate popular favour. The measure was highly effective, and 
the feelings of the citizens were completely enlisted in favour of the 
revolt. 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



209 



The Ionic revolutionary movement now assumed an appearance not The revolt 
less extensive than formidable ; the revolted towns named their gene- sysSmatisTd! 
rals, and placed themselves in a posture of defence ; and, not satisfied 
with the resources of the combined Ionians, Aristagoras passed over to 
Sparta, to procure the co-operation of king Cleomenes. To give power 
and spirit to his representations, he took with him a brazen tablet, Aristagoras 
upon which was engraved a representation of the route from Ephesus spartan 
to Susa ; and after pointing out the position, peculiar characteristics, court, 
and wealth of each nation, he laid before the Spartan king the dazzling 
temptation of Asiatic supremacy. Cleomenes postponed his answer, 
and the third day was appointed for the decisive reply, which, being 
unfavourable, Aristagoras determined to make a last effort: carrying 
in his hand the supplicatory bough, he approached Cleomenes, who 
was then sitting with his little daughter Gorgo ; he now attempted to Endeavours 
bribe the Spartan king to compliance, gradually raising his offers from gjjjjjjj the 
ten talents to fifty. Suddenly the little girl exclaimed, " Father, the king, 
stranger will corrupt you, if you do not at once go away." This 
exclamation had such an effect upon Cleomenes, that he immediately 
dismissed Aristagoras, who forthwith left Sparta. Thus disappointed 
in his application, he now turned to Athens ; and this great city, which Applies to 
had sent out so many colonies to the coast of Ionia, actuated by so strong Athens - 
a claim upon her affections, resolved at once to send a fleet of twenty 
ships to aid the insurgent Ionians. The Athenian armament, after 
crossing the JSgean, formed a junction with five Eretrian ships, and the Atheno- 
whole expedition was now placed under the command of Charopinus, ^dSJon. 
the brother of Aristagoras. After leaving the ships at Coressus, a sea- 
port five miles from Ephesus, the troops marched across the range of 
Tmolus to Sardis. Here Artaphernes, who had at that time but an 
inconsiderable force, drew off to the fortress, and the assailants entered Athenians 
the town without opposition ; they were not, however, destined to enter Sardls - 
maintain any long possession of their prize, for the Persian, calling in 
several detachments from the Lydians, and summoning a force stationed 
near Miletus, became at length too powerful for Charopinus. Accident Sardis in 
also contributed to the success of the Persian satrap. A conflagration flames ' 
broke out, and the houses being thatched ^-s=~=--. 
with reed or straw, the whole city was j|plF 
speedily involved in one vast and indis- * 
criminate blaze. The population now ^ -^n tfMlH ^^^^rf^ ^ 
crowded into the market-place, and the 
position of Ionians and Athenians was 
becoming perilous in the extreme, for the 
forces of Artaphernes continued to receive 
fresh accessions, till at length the Ionians 
were compelled to evacuate the city. Their 
march from Mount Tmolus, where they 
had taken up a position, proved most dis- 
astrous, for being overtaken by Artaphernes, near Ephesus, they sus- 
[h. g.] p 




210 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



d° f ia ted b ta * ne d a complete defeat, and Eualcides, the Eretrian general, perished. 

Arfaphemls. His Athenian allies, now abandoning Aristagoras, took no farther part 
in the straggle, but immediately sailed homewards. The resolution of 
Aristagoras, however, was in no way shaken ; he speedily formed a 
league of the Greek Hellespontic cities, the Carians and Caunians, who 
no sooner heard of the burning of Sardis than they resolved to embrace 
his cause: the Greeks of Cyprus, likewise, shook off the yoke of 
Darius. 

General The rebellion had now become serious, well organized, and exten- 

of g tb.e 1Zatl0n slYe > an d it required the most energetic action on the part of the Per- 
rebeiiion. sians, whose force was brought simultaneously to act on two different 
Extensive points. A Phoenician fleet transported into Cyprus an Egypto- 
Perskms* 116 ^ilician army, commanded by the Persian Artibius, while at the same 
time the force of Artaphernes, whose head-quarters were at Sardis, 
was recruited to such an extent as to command nearly the entire coast 
of Asia Minor. On the approach of Artibius, Onesilus, the commander 
of the Cypriots, urged the assistance of the Ionian fleet, which, arriving 
soon after the debarkation of the Persian force, gained a signal victory 
over the Phoenician fleet. 
Battle In the mean while, a conflict by land was being carried on be- 

PeSansand tween the Cyprians and the Persian force under Artibius, who, 
Cyprians. ranging fiercely through the fight, fell beneath the hands of Onesilus 
and his Carian shield-bearer. Hitherto the battle had proved favour- 
able to the Cypriots, but treachery was destined to tear the laurel 
from their brows. Deserted in the heat of the battle by Stesenor, 
despot of Curium, and treacherously abandoned by the scythed chariots, 
Death of which formed an important arm of his force, the valiant Onesilus 
Onesilus. perished in the flight that ensued. Nor were the insurgents more suc- 
cessful on the Asiatic coast. Here, at Sardis, were concentrated the 
Persian head- chief forces of Darius, whence, as from a common centre, they diverged 
sardisT at to carry out a masterly series of simultaneous operations. After 
sweeping the Hellespontic towns, one division wheeled southward into 
Caria, whilst a second, after capturing Cios, on the Propontis, passed 
the Hellespont, and effected the subjugation of the Troad. Meanwhile, 
simultaneous another body attacked the iEolic and Ionian sea-board towns, capturing 
SXePerafan ^ e i m P ortant settlements of Clazomense and Cyme. The Carians, how- 
force, j ever, presented a most resolute front to their invaders. Near the 
White Pillars, a post adjoining the Maeander and Marsyas, the rival 
Carians forces encountered. Superior numbers secured the victory to the 
?h?"White P ers ^ ans ) an d ten thousand Carians perished on the field of battle, 
pillars." After this defeat, they had taken post at a grove of plane-trees near 
Labranda, and were already consulting on the chances of another battle, 
or of an emigration, when a reinforcement from Miletus made its ap- 
Heracieides pearance. Thus re-encouraged, they fought a second battle, but were 
la y s a . . again defeated, with the loss of many Milesians. The Carian cities 

successful © 7 .iiii i i -n r 

ambush for must now have been entirely taken, had not the consummate skill ot 
^oopsT 1 * 11 Heracleides, of Mylasa, retrieved the ill-fortune of the Carians. This 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



211 



general laid an ambush, into which the eager troops of Persia irre- 
trievably fell ; they were nearly all cut to pieces, and Daurises, Amorges, 
and Sisimaces, their leaders, perished. The Carian towns now enjoyed 
a considerable respite, nor were they reduced till subsequent to the 
fall of Miletus. Notwithstanding this temporary gleam of good for- 
tune, the general affairs of the Ionians were becoming desperate ; and 
Aristagoras, in consequence, convoked the chiefs of the revolution. Aristagoras 
His object was to secure some place of refuge, and the island of Sar- ^Jiutionaxy 
dinia, or Myrcinus, in Thrace, were the two places proposed. The chiefs, 
latter was the post chosen by the chiefs of the convention, though, in 
proposing it, Aristagoras must have been conscious that on the re-esta- 
blishment of the Persian power in Asia Minor, every post near the 
Strymon, of which Myrcinus was one, must fall into their hands. Disastrous 
Notwithstanding, the scheme was adopted, and Aristagoras set sail for to MvidTus 
Myrcinus. The expedition was disastrous in the extreme, for Arista- b. c. 497. 
goras himself, and nearly the whole of the emigrants, perished in the 
assault of a Thracian town, not long after landing. 

Soon after the departure of Aristagoras, Histiaeus, his father-in-law, Histiaeus 
made his appearance at Miletus : his arrival gained no welcome from Miiltusf 
the citizens. In an attempt to force his way into the town by night, 
he was repulsed, and wounded in the thigh. Actuated by his usual 
intrigue and restlessness, he now repaired to Chios on a piratical 
mission: in this he failed, but proved more successful with the 
Lesbians, from whom he obtained eight triremes. With this force 
he took up a position at Byzantium, seizing and mercilessly pillaging Piracies of 
the Ionic merchantmen as they entered or returned from the Euxine. Histiaeus at 

J Byzantium. 

Here this dastardly traitor continued his piracies towards his country- 
men till the fall of Miletus. He now sailed with his Lesbian flotilla 
to Chios, where, being refused admittance, he completely vanquished Plunders 
the Chians and plundered the island. His career of reckless devastation JJ oJjS? 
was, however, fast drawing to a close. He had lately been engaged in 
a marauding expedition to Thasos, but hearing that the Phoenician fleet 
had quitted Miletus to reduce other Ionic cities, he sailed with his 
piratical band to the defence of Lesbos. Here he could find no sub- Sails to the 
sistence for his followers, and being compelled to pass over to the JjJbc? ° f 
Asiatic continent, to reap the standing crops in the plains of Mysia, he 
was surprised by a Persian force under Harpagus, by whom he was is taken 
routed, taken prisoner, and carried to Sardis. His punishment was £ r r U cifieu\ and 
speedy and ignominious. Artaphernes, the satrap, at once condemned 
him to crucifixion, and the head of Histiaeus was embalmed and de- 
spatched to Susa. 

We must now return to Miletus, the chief focus of the Ionic insur- 
rection, where an immense force was being concentrated under the 
command of Artaphernes. This active satrap had combined his whole Military com- 
power for the capture of this important city. By sea, a Phoenician ArtaphernGl. 
fleet of 600 ships was acting in co-operation with the army of Asia 
Minor, the Egypto-Cilician troops, and new levies from the vanquished 

p2 



212 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



Naval 
resources 
and defence 
of the 
Ionians. 



Valour and 
discipline of 
the Phocaean 
Dionvsius. 



His excellent 
advice. 



Impatience 
and unsteadi- 
ness of the 
Ionians. 



They 

desert their 
discipline 
and ships. 



Treachery 
of the 



Total defeat 
of the 
Ionians. 



Cypriots. This was a force with which the Ionians could not cope by 
land ; accordingly, the combined Ionic council, leaving to the Milesians 
the maintenance of their own fortifications, resolved to rest their chief 
defence upon their navy, the aggregate of which amounted to 353 ships, 
a force which, if rightly directed, might bid fair to obtain the mastery 
of the Ionian seas. But, unfortunately, the want of energetic leaders 
and of sound discipline proved the ruin of the enterprise. 

Amongst the various contingents which composed this formidable 
fleet, there was but one man of sterling vigour and resolution. Diony- 
sius, of Phocsea, almost the sole representative of the ancient maritime 
renown of the early colonists of Gaul, was the commander of three 
ships only. Full of noble enterprise, tempered by calm reflection, he 
perceived the peril of a conflict with the Persian navy in their present 
undisciplined state. " Men of Ionia," exclaimed he, " our fate hangs 
on the razor's edge, either to be freemen or slaves, and slaves, too, 
caught after running away : if, therefore, you are now willing to endure 
hardship, toil will be yours for the present ; but when you have van- 
quished the enemy, you will be enabled to enjoy freedom." In such a 
gallant strain did Dionysius continue to address the Ionians. The 
result was a temporary display of energetic alacrity ; but the native 
unsteadiness of the Ionian character, and its impatience under perse- 
vering toil, soon became manifest. Scarcely had seven days been spent 
in the practice of nautical evolutions, and the exercise of the crews and 
the Hoplitai, when the whole force broke out into open mutiny against 
Dionysius. " Which of the gods," exclaimed they, " have we offended, 
to bring upon ourselves such retribution as this ? madmen as we are, to 
give ourselves up to this bragging Phocasan, who has furnished but 
three ships;" and they unanimously declined his orders, and repaired 
to the enjoyment of their tents on shore. 

Their camp now became a scene of irregularity and confusion : per- 
fectly reckless of the important results at stake, they became entirely 
unmanageable. Meanwhile, treason was busy in their camp. (Eaces, 
their expelled tyrant, was privately tampering with the Samians, who 
promised to desert on the first favourable opportunity. Accordingly, 
at the fatal battle of Lade, which soon afterwards followed, sixty of 
their ships sailed off, eleven only excepted, whose commanders scorned 
such treachery. The ships of Chios, in a compact body occupying the 
centre, displayed a brilliant example of courage and discipline, but all 
their efforts could not repair the effects of cowardice and treachery in 
the remainder of the Ionian navy : its defeat was total and irretriev- 
able. Dionysius, the hero who evinced enterprising valour commen- 
surate with the soundness of his judgment, behaved nobly in the 
action, taking with his three ships a similar number of. the Phoenicians ; 
and, still formidable after the Ionian defeat, sailed to the coast of 
Phoenicia, and daringly seized on several Phoenician merchantmen ; 
then, setting sail for Sicily, he commenced a cruise against the 
Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, uniformly sparing all Greek vessels. 



THE IONIC REVOLT. 



213 



The result of the victory of Lade was the attack of Miletus by land 
and sea ; the walls were undermined, the engines of attack brought 
up, and the siege prosecuted with the utmost vigour. The city was 
speedily taken by storm, the male population slain, and the few who Miletus 
were spared were despatched with the women and children to the stormed, 
court at Susa. To these Darius appointed a residence at Ampe, near B * c * 
the mouth of the Tigris. 

Thus fell Miletus, in the sixth year of the revolt. In the ensuing islands 
summer, Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos — Artake and Proconnesus, in gabduedby 
the Propontis — the towns of the Chersonese — Selymbria and Perinthus, the Persians, 
in Thrace — fell under the power of the Persian fleet. The whole sea- 
board of Ionia was now swept from north to south, and mercilessly Destruction 
ravaged ; the most beautiful Greeks of either sex were distributed Ionian 
amongst the Persian grandees, and their buildings, sacred and profane, p° wer - 
given up to the flames. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE PERSIAN WAE. 
b. c. 490 to b. c. 469. 

Under this head we shall place the Biographies of the great men who 
conducted the Persian war with so brilliant a result, — the men who 
reaped imperishable renown at Marathon, at Thermopylae, at Salamis, 
at Plataea: the great names of Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, 
Leonidas, Pausanias. The story to be told in this chapter is one of 
the grandest in the history of the human race. 



INVASION OF GREECE BY COMMAND OF DARIUS, KING OF PERSIA. 
B. c. 492 to b, c. 490. 

We have already given, in the history of the Peisistratidae, a sketch of 
the Persian invasion of Greece ; but a thorough comprehension of the 
subject requires the citation of a few other particulars. 

When Darius had been informed of certain events of the Ionic revolt, 
he desired to know who the Athenians were. On being told, he called 
for his bow, and shooting an arrow in the air, exclaimed, " Suffer me, 
O Jupiter ! to be revenged on these Athenians." He afterwards directed 
one of his attendants to repeat to him, three times every day, when he 
sat down to table, " Sir, remember the Athenians." 1 
Mardonius In the twenty-eighth year of his reign, Darius engaged with peculiar 
Greece. 8 int ° ardour in his project for the conquest of Greece. The conduct of the 

1 Herod, b. v. c. 5. 



INVASION OF GREECE BY COMMAND OF DARIUS. 



215 



Persian forces he committed solely to Mardonius, a very young man, 
who had recently married a daughter of the king. Mardonius, according 
to Herodotus, collected at the Hellespont " a numerous fleet and a 
powerful army," with which he lt proceeded towards Eretria and Athens," 
to revenge the burning of Sardis. On his arrival in Macedonia, that 
country presently submitted. But the Thracians, availing themselves of His defeat, 
his insecure encampment, surprised his army in the night, destroyed a 
great number of his soldiers, and wounded Mardonius himself. His 
fleet, in the mean time, while doubling the Cape of Mount Athos, now 
Capo Santo, encountered a storm, in which there perished three hundred 
of his ships and 20,000 men. Thus disabled, Mardonius returned into 
Asia with the wreck of this mighty armament, when Darius, too late, 
regretted the confidence he had rashly placed in his youth and inex- 
perience. 

The king, who still had the resources of immense treasure and a vast 
population at his command, could not be diverted from his ambitious 
project. He sent heralds into Greece to demand submission, in the 
customary form, by the presentation of earth and water. The dread 
of the Persian power prevailed over the people of iEgina and many of 
the Grecian cities ; at Athens and Sparta they were otherwise received. 
" The Athenians," says Herodotus, " threw the heralds of Darius into 
their pit of punishment, and the Lacedsemonians, into wells, telling them 
to procure the earth and water there, and carry it to their king." 1 

Darius now hastened the departure of Datis the Mede, and Arta- Succeeded by 
phernes, his own nephew, son of the governor of Sardis, whom he had Jrtaphernes. 
appointed generals in the place of Mardonius. They received special 
orders from the king to plunder and burn Eretria and Athens. On 
reaching the coasts of Ionia, they collected an army of 300,000 men, 
and a fleet of six hundred ships. In the ensuing spring they assembled 
their whole fleet at Samos. Having taken Naxos, and all the neigh- 
bouring islands, they besieged Eretria. The disunion among the citizens, 
the retirement of the Athenian succours, hopeless of serving such self- 
devoted allies, and the treachery by which the city was at length betrayed 
to the Persians, we have already narrated. To execute the royal vengeance, 
Eretria was pillaged, the temples were destroyed, in revenge for those 
burned at Sardis, and the inhabitants were sent captives to Susa. There, 
according to the caprice so often discovered in the exercise of despotic 
power, Darius treated them kindly, and allowed them a settlement, in 
which their descendants were found in after ages. 

Passing over to Attica, the Persians were led by Hippias to the Battle of 
plain of Marathon, ten miles from Athens. Their army, according to Marathon - 
Cornelius Nepos, 2 consisted of 200,000 foot, and 10,000 horse. 
The forces which the Athenians could oppose to such a formidable 
hostility were only 10,000 foot, (including 1,000 Plataeans,) for they 
had no cavalry. The particulars of this almost incredible battle ; the 
choice of Miltiades for general, by the disinterested patriotism of Aris- 
1 B. vii. c. xxxiii. 2 Life of Miltiades. 



216 



MILTIADES. 



Degeneracy 
of the 
Persian 
soldiers. 



Rage of 
Darius. 



He prepares 
to renew 
the war. 

His death. 

b. c. 486. 



tides and the rest of his companions ; the delay of the Lacedaemonian 
succour, from a superstition which robbed them of a glorious distinction ; 
have been already related. 

The Persian soldiers had now lost much of that hardihood which 
distinguished the armies of Cyrus. According to Plutarch, 1 " those 
who fought in the battle of Marathon had garments embroidered 
with gold upon their delicate bodies, well suited to their effeminate 
minds." They are, however, admitted by Herodotus to have maintained 
a long and obstinate contest, the centre, composed of Persians and the 
Sacse, obliging the Greeks to give way, and pursuing them. But the 
Athenians and Plata?ans, who formed the wings of the Grecian army, 
closed upon the Persians, and obtained a complete victory, killing a 
great number, and pursuing the rest, who were escaping to their ships. 
The loss of the Persians in this battle is stated by Herodotus to have 
been no more than 6,400 men slain on the field, but Trogus computed 
that, by sword, shipwreck, and disease, there were lost 200,000. 

Herodotus, in the commencement of his seventh book, says, that 
"when the news of the battle of Marathon reached Darius, he who 
was before incensed against the Athenians for their destruction of 
Sardis, became still more exasperated, and resolved more eagerly on 
the invasion of Greece. He therefore instantly sent orders to the cities 
under his allegiance to provide a far greater number of transports, horses, 
and provisions." 

His preparations, indeed, to accomplish mighty projects were un- 
ceasing ; but he was arrested by a power mightier than his own. He 
died after a reign of thirty-six years, b. c. 486, and according to Hero- 
dotus, " in the year which followed the revolt of the Babylonians, leav- 
ing ungratified the resentment he had cherished against the Egyptians 
and Athenians, who had ventured to oppose his power." 



MILTIADES. 

FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 490. 

The fickleness of the Athenian democracy, ever profuse in its favours, 
B. c. 490. ungrateful in its neglect, or tremendous in its anger, is in no instance 
more strongly illustrated than in the lives of the patriots Miltiades, 
Aristides, and Themistocles. Each of these exalted citizens possessed 
his own peculiar virtues ; each of them was loaded with honours and 
rewards, and each of them, in his turn, felt the severity of those laws 
and the tyranny of that power which he himself had so largely con- 
tributed to support, if not to originate. In contrast with the evils, 
however, of a popular form of government, exemplified in the lives of 
these celebrated men, we must not omit to observe, on the other hand, 
a certain beneficial result. In times of public danger, and of threatened 
subversion under foreign dominion, men of great and extraordinary 
powers in a democracy rise up, as it were, from the very stones of 
their cities ; real merit much more readily finds both its due impetus 
1 Life of Aristides. 



MILTIADES. 



217 



and its due reward ; and the temptations of ambition are open to its 
votaries only, because they have first preserved them to their country. 
Among the Athenians, the extreme jealousy of undue power, lodged 
in the hands of any one person, for a long time effectually guarded 
them against the ambition of their chieftains. But as individuals pos- 
sessed too little, so the aggregate of the community enjoyed too much 
authority ; and the misuse of that power is strikingly displayed in the 
lives of those who were in turn the favourites and the victims of a 
fierce and ungovernable populace. 

Miltiades, the senior chief of the heroes of Marathon, was descended 
from a noble and distinguished family. His father, named Cimon, the 
son of Cypselus, was one of those high- 
minded Athenians who, in the time of 
Peisistratus, could not brook obedience 
to the tyrant, and quitted his country 
in consequence of that feeling. The 
magnanimity of Peisistratus, however, 
soon induced him to return, and he 
afterwards slain in a domestic 




was 

tumult in the city. Cimon left two 
sons, one named Stesagoras and the 
other Miltiades, the Athenian general. 
Stesagoras was soon called to a higher 
station than that which either his father 
or himself had filled in Athens. The 
sons of Cimon had an uncle named 
Miltiades, the son of Cypselus, who, by his own merits, and in conse- 
quence of the dictates of the Delphic oracle, became prince of the 
Thracian Dolonci, the inhabitants of a part of Chersonesus; and, dying 
without issue, his nephew Stesagoras succeeded him in that sove- 
reignty. The reign of Stesagoras was short ; he was slain by a blow 
from an axe, given by an enemy disguised in the dress and accoutre- 
ments of a deserter ; and dying, like his uncle, without issue, Miltiades, 
the celebrated Athenian general, became entitled to the throne and Originally 
property of his brother. He was a favourite at this time with Peisis- ^o\ nli hi 
tratus, the sovereign of Athens; and that prince, ever the friend of 
monarchy, assisted him with a small army to support his title. With 
one ship only he sailed to take possession of his new government ; and, 
perceiving the necessity of stratagem, on his arrival in the Chersonesus 
he absented himself from the public shows, and affected a particular 
seclusion, pretending grief for the death of Stesagoras, and a desire to 
do honour to his memory. By this artifice he collected, to condole 
with him, all the principal persons from the neighbouring cities, an 
event for which Miltiades had duly prepared. The murder of his 
father Cimon is said to have been contrived, or perpetrated, at Athens, 
by the very persons whom he now found in his power ; they were, 
therefore, seized and imprisoned by order of Miltiades, and his path to 



218 



MILTIADES. 



settlement 
at Athens. 



Finally 

abandons 
his throne 



the throne was secured from danger ; but whether any further punish- 
ment was inflicted on them is nowhere recorded. Miltiades now found 
himself the undisputed master of Chersonesus. He immediately formed 
a body-guard of five hundred auxiliaries, and allied himself by marriage 
with Olorus, king of Thrace, by whose daughter, Hegesipyla, he was 
presented with a son, Cimon, afterwards celebrated in Grecian history. 
Causes of his The new monarch was not, however, destined long to enjoy his 
dominions in tranquillity : he was to descend from this petty throne to 
lead the way to an imperishable renown. In the third year of his 
government, Darius, in resentment of certain alleged injuries he had 
received from the Athenians, made retaliation on all Greece and the 
neighbouring countries ; when the Scythian wandering tribes, taking 
advantage of the general state of confusion occasioned by the Persian 
expedition, assembled in great numbers on the borders of Chersonesus, 
which they plundered, without attempting to maintain, but soon suf- 
fered it to revert to its former prince ; and Miltiades was reinstated in 
his power by the Dolonci. A short interval of peace succeeded ; but 
in the third year after his restoration, Darius, provoked, perhaps, by the 
known attachment of Miltiades to the Athenians, sent a powerful army 
of the Phoenicians against him ; and the hero, surrounding bimself with 
his friends, and collecting all his riches, finally abandoned his domi- 
nions, and set sail, with a fleet of five ships, for Athens. It is said 
that the Phoenicians intercepted him, and took one of the vessels, com- 
manded by his son, Metrochus, on whom Darius refused to avenge his 
quarrel with the father. According to Herodotus, the king " showed 
him the greatest kindness, gave him possessions in Persia, and married 
him to a Persian lady." 

The Athenians had been prepared to receive the royal fugitive with 
honour. He had never, in the course of his sovereignty over Cherso- 
nesus, forgotten his connections with his native soil, and on one occa- 
sion had rendered Athens a considerable service. The inhabitants of 
the island of Lemnos, having been admonished by the Delphic oracle 
to compose their differences with the Athenians by an absolute sub- 
mission, the Lemnian ambassadors are said to have answered con- 
temptuously, and, as it was then deemed, impiously, that " they would 
comply when a ship from the Athenian dominions should be blown 
into their harbour by a north wind ; confident, in the then imperfect 
state of the art of navigation, that, as the haven of Lemnos was 
situated to the north of Attica, they were perfectly secure from such 
an event. Miltiades, however, being possessed of the Chersonesus, 
easily sailed from a port in the Hellespont, and won the harbour of 
Lemnos, driven thither by a strong north wind ; when, aware alike of 
the oracle and of the positive answer of the Lemnites, he instantly 
demanded a fulfilment of both, by their submission to him as repre- 
sentative of the Athenians. This requisition was immediately com- 
plied with ; partly, perhaps, through their superstitious reverence of 
the oracle, and partly in deference to their own honour. 



His former 
services to 
Athens. 



MILTIADES. 



219 



But neither these services nor the known friendship of Miltiades to 
the Athenian state could screen him from censure on account of that 
which was, in the eyes of the Athenians, a serious crime. He had, 
from an Athenian citizen, become a monarch ; and, in their inveterate 
hatred to kingly government, these arbitrary republicans actually 
formed an accusation against him on this account, and he was regu- 
larly tried for the offence, of which, however, he was as strangely 
acquitted. His talents, reputation, and riches had soon elevated him 
to the highest offices of public trust and honour, when the ambassadors 
of Darius came to Athens, demanding earth and water from the citi- 
zens, in token of their submission to the Persians. Those emissaries of 
the tyrant, his countrymen threw into a pit, as a signal of defiance to 
their master, proclaiming to them aloud that in that place they would 
find the objects of their requisition, earth and water, sufficient for their 
purpose, and as much as the Athenian honour could grant them. After 
this hostile menace, Miltiades was appointed one of the ten generals to Commands 
command the Athenian army, and we have already seen in how vigor- at Maratho1 
ous a manner he conducted those troops to immortal honour in the 
field. 

On his return to Athens from the splendid victory of Marathon, 
Miltiades was treated with increased respect. He was represented in 
the picture painted by order of the Athenians, in the Poecilian portico, 
foremost amongst the ten captains, animating his soldiers to the charge. 
But this appears to have been his only reward. In the height of his 
popularity, the Athenians rejected his demand of an olive crown, and 
severely rebuked the hero for presuming to claim it. Soon afterwards, 
in an assembly of the people, he proposed that they should make a 
descent upon the island of Paros, to retaliate upon the inhabitants of 
that place the offence which they had committed in rendering assist- 
ance to Darius in his late expedition to Marathon ; but the real motive 
which influenced the Athenian general in this proposal was a private 
quarrel between him and Lysagoras, a Parian chieftain. Unfortunately, 
both for his own fate and the fortunes of the Athenians, Miltiades, now 
a leading man in their assemblies, succeeded without difficulty in per- 
suading them to adopt his scheme ; and they entrusted him with a 
fleet of seventy ships, well manned, and proportionally appointed. 
With this force Miltiades sailed from Athens in high hopes of con- Expedition 
quest, promising to return with great riches, the fruits of his antici- t0 Paros - 
pated victory. Arrived at the island of Paros, he landed without 
opposition, and sent heralds to the city demanding the sum of one 
hundred talents to be immediately paid him as a ransom for their 
country, which, in case of refusal, he threatened to give up to the 
plunder of Ins irritated army. The Parians, unmoved by these 
menaces, and confident in their strength, affected to deliberate on his 
proposals, and then sent back to Miltiades an unqualified defiance. The 
Athenians for a time carried on the siege with some prospect of ulti- 
mate success ; when, by either treason or accident, an event befel their 



220 



MILTIADES. 



general which proved fatal to all their anticipations. One Timo, a 
Parian priestess, came secretly to Miltiades, promising that she would 
disclose to him a method by which he might take the city with the 
utmost ease; and the Athenian general listened to her scheme with 
Misled to his too easy a credulity. In consequence of her advice, he repaired in 
ruin. secret and alone to the temple of Demeter, expecting to find its gates 

opened for his reception. In this he was disappointed, and by no 
violence was he able to force them. He, therefore, climbed to the top 
of the wall, and thence leaped down into the area of the temple, still 
encouraging the hope that he should meet his supposed confederates. 
Seized with a sudden horror at his own impiety, he now determined 
to attempt his return. With this view he hastily reascended the 
wall, when his foot slipped, and he broke his thigh in falling, or, 
according to other accounts, dislocated his knee-pan. In what manner 
he reached his camp we are not told, but his arrival there, in this 
deplorable condition, might well be supposed to spread consternation 
and panic throughout the army: in consequence of it the siege was 
raised, and the expedition re-embarked, baffled and defeated in its 
purpose. 

His The short season of the glory of Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, 

reception* at 6 had now passed away. With an army diminished in numbers and 
Athens. broken in spirit, the helpless Miltiades returned mortally wounded to 
Athens, and found the general dissatisfaction was increasing. The 
circumstance of his personal quarrel with Lysagoras, the Parian chief, 
was alleged as an argument to prove his motive for the recent expe- 
dition to have been self-interest alone ; and Xanthippus, the father of 
the famous Pericles, boldly came forward to the general assembly, and 
accused their formerly victorious general of having designedly led the 
people into the war. This construction of his conduct was instantly 
adopted, and the popular voice now loudly demanded the sentence of 
death on the unfortunate Miltiades, as an expiation of his crime. The 
situation of the accused was the more distressing, as it was utterly im- 
possible, from his wounds, that he could enter on his own defence. 
His known eloquence, might not have been without influence on the 
multitude ; but he was obliged, however unwilling, to trust his defence 
to Tisagoras, his brother, who, indeed, used his most strenuous and 
affectionate exertions on his behalf. Thus disabled, with his wounded 
limb mortifying, he was brought into the assemby on a couch, while 
his cause was pleaded by his friends. Tisagoras represented to the 
Athenians, that although Miltiades had failed in this last expedition, it 
was yet to him that they were indebted for that victory at Marathon, 
which had effected the preservation of Athens from the cruelties 
threatened by the Persian monarch: he therefore entreated them to 
forgive his present error in consideration of his past services, and to 
regard with commiseration him to whom they were indebted for the 
power of those laws which he had protected from dissolution by the 
Persian king. This appeal to their pity was not without its effect. 



MILTIADES. 



221 



On a solemn hearing, the assembled Athenian people acquitted 
Miltiades of any crime deserving death, but, at the same time, they 
sentenced him to pay a fine of fifty talents, the counter-penalty proposed 
by his friends, and probably the amount of the late unfortunate Parian 
expedition. This was a payment too large for the fortune of Miltiades 
to sustain ; and maimed and disabled as he was, the Athenians dragged 
him to prison, condemning him to surfer in person for that which he 
was unable to pay in money. 1 

If the Marathonian hero had not already received his death-wounds Condemned 
at Paros, the ingratitude and cruelty of the Athenians would, in all 6ne. Severe 
probability, have exacerbated those wounds, however slight, so as to 
have produced an event equally fatal. It is, indeed, by no means clear 
that this was not actually the case ; a broken thigh or a dislocated 
knee-pan, could scarcely be supposed, however immature the art of 
surgery, to have produced death without accelerating or assisting 
causes ; and where can we seek for those causes so successfully as in 
the wounded mind of the hero ? Whatever were the immediate causes, 
however, this celebrated general died in prison from the mortification Dies in 
of his wounded limb, soon after his trial and subsequent condemnation. P nson - 
The cruelty of the Athenians did not end with the death of their 
victim ; they denied him the rites of burial until the fine imposed upon 
him was discharged ; and Cimon, the son of Miltiades, offered his own 
person, to redeem the body of his parent from further indignity, This 
noble son of no ignoble father, was now, in his turn, sent to prison to 
enforce the payment of the fine ; nor was he released till, the sum 
being discharged by one Callias, the hard law, and the harder hearts of 
the Athenian democracy were satisfied. This was at the expense of a 
further sacrifice made by Cimon for the redemption of his father's 
honour. According to the barbarous laws and customs of those days, 
he had married a sister by his father's side, whose name was Elpinice, 
and who was admired by Callias, a person of low birth, the same who 
paid the fine for the liberation of Cimon, which, however, he only con- 
sented to do on Cimon's giving up Elpinice to him as his wife. Both 
Cimon and Elpinice were unwilling to separate ; but a cause common 
to both, the family honour, at length prevailed, and it is recorded, as a 
peculiar instance of magnanimity in Elpinice, that she gave herself up 
to Callias, on his payment of the fine for Cimon, with the declaration 
that " whilst in her power to prevent it, she would not suffer any of 
the family of Miltiades to remain in prison or distress." Thus perished 
Miltiades the victor of Marathon, one of the first of those heroes who 
afterwards rendered Athens so famous on the pages of history. The 
love of power — a temptation scarcely resistible by human nature — was 
the principal failing of his character ; but after he had attained that 
power, his native generosity of heart forbade him to use it with in- 
justice or cruelty. During the time of his magistracy, he was moderate, 

1 Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch are authorities which Grote (vol. iv. pp. 497-8) 
doubts, relying on the omission of the imprisonment by Herodotus. 



222 



INVASION OF GREECE BY XERXES. 



humble, and universally beloved ; nor in the days of his adversity did 
the slightest spot of malignity cloud his reputation. 

MUSTERING OF THE PERSIANS FOR THE FINAL INVASION OF 
GREECE, UNDER XERXES. 
b. c. 483 to b. c. 480. 
Mardonius, desirous of recovering the military reputation which he 
had lost by his early misadventures, had urged Xerxes, the son of 
Darius, immediately on his accession to the throne, to retaliate the 
wrongs which Persia had received from the Athenians. He also re- 
presented the beauty and fertility of Europe, which rendered it worthy 
to become the sole possession of the Great King, especially as it 
abounded in all kinds of trees, of which some parts of Persia are 
Aieuadaj. remarkably destitute. Messengers also arrived from the Aleuadae, 
princes of Thessaly, who entreated the king to march against Greece, 
and employed every argument in their power to persuade him. The 
Peisistratidae. survivors of the fallen family of the Peisistratidse, who had found a 
refuge at Susa, joined their solicitations. To aid the same design, 
Onomacritus, a famous priest, who had been formerly banished from 
Athens, of which he was a citizen, recited some oracular verses. 
Omitting everything unfavourable to the Persians, he selected what- 
ever was encouraging. He particularly assured the king, speaking of 
his marching an army into Greece, how the Destinies had determined 
that a Persian should throw a bridge over the Hellespont. 
Xerxes Three years were employed in preparations for the invasion of 

Se 6S ° Greece, which Xerxes regarded as an easy acquisition. " He refused," 
Greece. savs Plutarch, " to eat Attic figs that were brought for sale, 
waiting till they became his own, by the conquest of the country that 
produced them. 

Extent of While Xerxes was thus preparing for the conquest of the Greeks, 
preparations. ne engaged the Carthaginians to attack their colonies in Italy and 
Sicily. He likewise drew his levies, like his father Darius, from all 
the nations of that vast continent which owned the Persian sway. 
Thus, according to the prophet Daniel, 1 4 'By his strength and 
his great riches he stirred up all against the realm of Grecia." Our 
historian says, " "What nation of Asia did not Xerxes lead against 
Greece ? What waters, except great rivers, were not exhausted by his 
armies ? Some of the people furnished ships, (and the whole have 
been computed at more than three thousand,) others raised infantry, 
and others cavalry. Some provided transports for the horses and the 
troops, or long vessels to form bridges, while others even brought 
stores of provisions and vessels to transport them." The place of 
rendezvous for this naval armament was Elseus, in the Chersonesus 
of Thrace. Thence, if we credit our historian, detachments were 
Mount sent to execute the prodigious labour of cutting a canal through Mount 
Athos. Athos, now Monte Santo, or rather through the isthmus behind it. 

1 xi. 2. 



INVASION OF GREECE BY XERXES. 



223 



Herodotus has minutely described the expedients employed to dig 
this canal, a work which he attributes to the king's vain desire of 
displaying his power and of leaving a monument to posterity ; as 
with far less trouble he might have transported the vessels across the 
isthmus. This vanity imputed to Xerxes appears, indeed, to have 
been a favourite theme of antiquity. Thus Plutarch imputes to the 
haughty Persian king the following frantic epistle to the mountain : 
" Athos, whose top now reaches to the skies, I charge thee not to in 
terrupt my workmen with stones which cannot be cut asunder, lest I 
cut thee into pieces, and whelm thee in the sea." 




Xerxes, having completed his preparations, began his march from The march 
Susa, with the troops which accompanied him from Persia. At trom usa " 
Critalla, in Cappadocia, which is supposed to have been the Archelais 
of the Eomans, and the modern Erekli, the rest of the troops which 
were to compose the land army were assembled to attend the king, 
who now proceeded on his march to Sardis. 

On his arrival at Sardis, he immediately sent heralds into Greece, Heralds sent 
with the exception of Athens and Lacedasmon, to demand the homage int0 Greece - 
of earth and water : thus Xerxes occupied the winter of the fifth year 
of his reign. He had previously ordered, according to our historian, 
vast preparations for passing the Hellespont ; and upon a temporary 
disappointment of his scheme, discovered a childish petulance, which 
has made this king a theme for satire through all ages. 

He had ordered a bridge to be constructed across the Hellespont, Bridge 
for the passage of his army into Europe. The workmen commenced Hellespont, 
at the side next Abydos, the Phoenicians using (to connect the vessels) 
a cordage made of linen, and the Egyptians one made of the bark of 
the byblus. This bridge was no sooner completed at the narrowest 
part of the strait, which was nearly a mile over, when a violent 
tempest dispersed the whole. Enraged by the knowledge of the 
disaster, Xerxes sentenced the Hellespont to be whipped to the extent 
of three hundred lashes, and ordered that a pair of fetters should be 



224 



INVASION OF GREECE BY XERXES. 



thrown into the sea, which made Juvenal (x. 183) extol the king's 
lenity — 

quod non et stigmate dignum 

Credidit : 

(that he had not branded the sea with a hot iron.) Xerxes, however, 
who had written to Mount Athos, now sent the following vituperatory 
epistle to the Hellespont, to be delivered by the flagellators : " Thou 
salt and bitter water, thy master thus punishes thee, because thou 
hast offended him without provocation ; Xerxes the king will insist on 
passing over thee : no one should offer thee a sacrifice, since thou art 
deceitful and of an unsavoury flavour." After thus punishing the sea, 
the despot concluded by beheading those who had constructed 
the bridge. Another was presently completed, or rather two bridges 
were contrived, one for the soldiers, and the other for the baggage 
and beasts of burden. 
March from The army, which had wintered at Sardis, left that city early in the 
sardis. spring, being terrified at the moment of their departure by a sudden 

darkness, probably an eclipse. Im- 
mediately after the baggage-train 
marched troops of all nations, an 
undistinguished multitude, com- 
prising more than half the army ; 
at some distance followed a thou- 
sand cavalry, selected from the 
whole Persian army ; then a thou- 
sand chosen foot, armed with pikes 
trailing on the ground ; after these 
came ten Nissean horses superbly 
caparisoned ; following these ap- 
peared the sacred car of Jupiter, 
drawn by eight white horses ; 
behind these, on foot, was the 
charioteer holding the reins, for no 
mortal was permitted to mount 
the car ; then appeared Xerxes, in 
a chariot drawn by Nissean horses ; 
by his side sat the charioteer, a 
Persian named Patiramphes, the 
son of Otanes. Thus Xerxes de- 
parted from Sardis at the head of 
his Persian forces. 

Having proceeded along the 
banks of the Caicus, they at length 
reached the Scamander, the first 
river, says our historian, which 
failed to supply a sufficiency of water for the troops and beasts of 
burden. Here Xerxes is said to have ascended the citadel of Priam to 




INVASION OF GREECE BY XERXES. 



225 



survey the plain of Ilium, and to have sacrificed a thousand oxen to 
the Trojan Athene, whose temple was in the citadel, while the Magi 
offered libations to the Hero-gods of the country. How this citadel 
should have survived the glory of Ilium for so many centuries, or 
how Xerxes, under the guidance of the Persian Magi, should have 
honoured a temple by a costly sacrifice, we cannot understand. 

The army, however, arrived at Abydos, on the Asian shore of the Arrival at 
Hellespont. Here Xerxes gratified his desire of surveying his land Ab y dos - 
and naval armament, in its prodigious extent. There was placed on 
an eminence a throne of white marble, from which he is said to have 
beheld these myriads of troops, and this multitude of vessels, at one 
view, and to have been further gratified by the exhibition of a naval 
combat, in which the Phoenicians of Sidon were the victors. The first 
feeling of the Great King was that of self-gratulation, on viewing the 
vast assemblage of which he was the sovereign lord. But soon, to 
borrow the language of Glover, 1 — 

as down 

Th' immeasurable ranks his sight was lost, 
A momentary gloom o'ercast his mind, 
While this reflection filled his eyes with tears : 
That, soon as time a hundred years had told, 
Not one of all those thousands should survive. 

Yet as Seneca well remarks 2 " the very man who shed these tears was 
about to destroy quickly that multitude whose death, within a hun- 
dred years, he now professed to deplore." 

After calling an assembly of the principal Persians to receive the Passage 
king's last commands on passing over into Europe, the next morning, Hellespont 
before sunrise, they burned on the bridge a profusion of perfumes, and 
strewed the road with branches of myrtle. At the rising of the sun, 
Xerxes poured a libation into the sea from a golden cup, and prayed 
the sun to avert every calamity which might interfere with his subju- 
gation of Europe to the farthest limits. He then threw the cup into 
the Hellespont, as also a golden goblet and a Persian scymitar. " I 
cannot decide," says Herodotus, " whether, in throwing these things 
into the sea, Xerxes designed an oblation to the sun, or if, repenting 
of the chastisement he had inflicted on the Hellespont, he intended to 
appease that sea by his offerings." 

Xerxes and his army having all passed over, Xerxes determined to 
arrange and number his forces. This he effected by first collecting 
10,000 men, and enclosing with walls the exact space they were found 
to occupy. Successive bodies of 10,000 men each were then ad- 
mitted into the enclosure, till the whole army was numbered. 

The amount of the land forces, Herodotus reports to have been 
1,700,000, or rather, upon the whole, 1,800,000, a statement which 
may excite no small doubts of the correct information, in this instance, 
at least, of the reputed Father of History. Mr. Richardson regards his 
1 Leonidas, b. iii. 2 De Brev. Vit. c. xvii. 

[H. G.] Q 



226 



INVASION OF GREECE BY XERXES. 



statement as absolutely fabulous, and is led to doubt whether " the 
paramount sovereign of Persia" ever undertook this expedition into 
Greece. He rather concludes it may have been the project of some 
feudatory prince, or viceroy of the western districts of that empire. 
M. Larcher, on the other hand, justly alleges the enslaved condition of 
the immense population of the Persian empire, all, without distinction 
of rank or occupation, forced to become soldiers at the command of 
the sovereign. To the computations of later writers, Ctesias, Diodorus, 
iElian, Pliny, and Justin, who, though varying, have all greatly 
diminished the numbers of this army, Larcher opposes the statement 
of Herodotus as almost a contemporary, who, at Olympia, must have 
found, to listen to his recital, many Greeks who had fought against 
Xerxes. Yet it is obvious that the sanction of Persians to his veracity 
had been far more satisfactory. For what exaggeration would not the 
Greeks have excused, to gratify their hatred of the Persian power ? 
Major Rennell offers what is probably the best solution of this difficulty, 
when he says, that " the Persians may be compared, in respect to the 
rest of the army of Xerxes, with the Europeans in a British army in 
India;" where, as at the siege of Seringapatam, 20,000 regular troops 
have been attended by a mixed multitude of more than 100,000. 
Military^ To the command of this armament twelve generals were appointed 
a ' for the land forces ; the first of whom was Mardonius, who now 
hoped to retrieve his lost military reputation ; another of these leaders 
was Megabyzus, the son of Zopyrus ; Hydarnes commanded the 
10,000 Persians who were called the immortal band. The cavalry 
had separate commanders, and four generals were appointed for the 
fleet, which at first consisted of 1200 vessels of war, and the number 
was increased by those states in Europe which the power of Xerxes 
had inclined to solicit his alliance. These commanders of the fleet 
are named by Herodotus, but none of them distinguished themselves 
except his countrywoman Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, who 
attended Xerxes with five ships, the best appointed of all the fleet. 
She is celebrated as well for her courage in battle as for her prudent 
counsel. 

Xerxes Xerxes, having numbered his forces of every description, proceeded, 

forcST hlS according to the narration of Herodotus, to review the immense mul- 
titude which the historian assigns to this expedition. Mounted on a 
car, the king passed through every rank of the different nations, pro- 
posing suitable questions to each, attended by his secretaries, who 
wrote down the answers. He then seated himself on the deck of a 
Sidonian vessel, under a cloth of gold, and thus gratified his curiosity 
in passing through the fleet. The king then sent for Demaratus, the 
exiled Spartan prince, who attended him in this expedition, and had 
probably witnessed the review. Demanding of the Spartan whether 
he thought the Greeks would venture to resist such a force, Demaratus 
prudently inquired whether his royal patron were disposed to hear 
the truth, or to be flattered. Xerxes requiring his opinion without 



INVASION 01" GREECE BY XEEXES. 



227 



apprehension or disguise, Demaratus assured the king that the Greeks 
or at least the Lacedemonians, would resist, even though they could 
muster onlv a thousand men. He then closed a conversation of some 
lenoth by a flattering wish that the expedition might succeed accord- 
ing the king's desires. This success, however, he had endeavoured 
to°prevent, by the intelligence which he had communicated to the 
Greeks beincr, according to Justin, amitior patriot post fugam, quam 
regi, post beneficia (more friendly to the country which had banished, 
than to the king who had entertained him). 

Xerxes now traversed the territory of Thrace, which his fleet A£mrf 
coasted, to supply the necessary provisions for the army, except when army- 
thev were furnished bv the cities on his march, as at Abdera ; where 
a citizen, according to Herodotus, proposed to thank the gods for 
their escape from total ruin, as Xerxes had exacted only one meal in a 
day. On the banks of the Strymon, as the historian relates, the Magi, 
for the purpose of divination, sacrificed white horses, the appearance 
of whose entrails contained the happiest prognostications of a success- 
mi expedition. 




Xerxes proceeded on his march, receiving the submission of the order of 
countries through which he passed, and from these he continually aug- 
mented his forces. The army at length arrived at Therma afterwards Am-i * 
called Thessalonica, and now, by the Turks, Salomki, situate on the 
gulf which bears that name. Here Xerxes appears to have remained 



228 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



a considerable time, and the historian attributes to him the project of 
diverting the course of the river Peneus. He waited, however, the 
return of the heralds whom he had sent to all the states of Greece, 
except Athens and Lacedaemon, to demand the homage of earth and 
water. The principal of those who submitted were the people of 
Thessaly and the Locrians, both justly dreading the approach of the 
Persian forces. The Spartans and Athenians treated his heralds with 
contempt and derision. 

We need not pursue the march of Xerxes any further. The events 
that occurred when this multitude of orientals met the hostile Greeks 
will be described in the following sections. 




ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 

FLOURISHED FROM B. C. 489 TO B. C. 449. 

b. c, 489. The names of these illustrious Athenians are so closely interwoven 
throughout the most interesting events, and the character of each is so 
constantly illustrating that of the other by contrasted rivalry, that they 
cannot well be disunited. Scarcely a circumstance of importance to 
their country occurred during the period in which they lived, but we 
find both these patriots shared in its glory; hence, because their united 
fates will serve to illustrate the same points in the manners, laws, and 
government of Athens, we shall not now disjoin what has often been 
considered together. 

Aristides was the son of Lysimachus, of the tribe of Antiochis, re- 
siding in the village of Alopece, in Attica. Themistocles was, on the 
maternal side, a foreigner, and of disputed extraction. Some writers 
speak of his mother under the name of Euterpe, others under that of 
Abrotonum ; his father was named Neocles, of the tribe of Leontes. 
Aristides and Both these great men were comparatively of mean families ; they appear, 
edSted° cleS however, to have been brought up from the age of boyhood together, 
to-ether. and to have developed in their juvenile sports much of that spirit of 



ARISTIDES and themistocles. 



229 



personal rivalry which afterwards appeared in their history. In boyhood 
the different dispositions of the future patriots we*e equally remarkable. 
Themistocles was bold, impetuous, and ambitious, little careful of the 
means by which his ambition was gratified. Subtle and courteous 
when overawed by superior attainments ; but haughty on other occa- 
sions. At a very early age he is said to have cultivated the art of 
oratory, in which he exhibited powers which attracted the admiration 
of his superiors. " Boy," said his tutor, on one of these occasions, with Themis- 
much more discrimination than discretion, " thou wilt become, at some oratory!" 17 
future time, either a mighty curse or a mighty blessing to thy country ; 
thou wilt never prove an ordinary man." Aristides, on the other hand, 
was early distinguished by the firmness of his resolutions, and the 
equity of his general conduct. The objects he proposed to himself were 
honourable, and the means which he used to attain them were candid 
and honest. 

His integrity naturally led him to the study of the Spartan philosophy Aristides' 
of Lycurgus. He disdained to flatter an unsteady populace ; and, although early vmu<3 ' 
an advocate for the cause of republicanism, he became a supporter of 
the aristocracy. Truth, however, was his great object, and justice was 
his path. Themistocles, whose motives were those of ambition alone, 
chose the readiest way to accomplish his object, by becoming an 
excessive favourer of democracy, to which side he was inclined by his 
ripening jealousy of Aristides — an unworthy jealousy, which shook to 
the centre at times the constitution of their country. Nevertheless, when 
that country was in danger, the talents of both were united with equal 
warmth in protecting it. 

The most eminent occasion which presented itself in illustration of 
their devoted patriotism was at the battle of Marathon. Both Aristides in joint 
and Themistocles were, on that occasion, amongst the ten generals who Marathon. at 
commanded the Athenian army, under Callimachus the Polemarch ; and 
both signalized their capacity before and after that celebrated conflict, 
the details of which will be found in our account of the Peisistratidse. 

When Miltiades marched to Athens to repel the plundering fugitives 
of the Persian army, Aristides was left in command of those Greeks 
at Marathon who guarded the prisoners and the spoil. The vast treasures 
of the enemy now lay at his complete disposal : he was young as a 
commander, and well acquainted with the tempting power of gold ; 
but his personal disinterestedness was conspicuous on the occasion. He 
conducted the vast booty with scrupulous care to the capital, and, 
amidst the plaudits of his countrymen, resigned his important command. 

The Athenians were no sooner released from the danger of that Dissensions 
invasion, than their private dissensions rose to as high and dangerous [hes^ca"^ 
excesses as before. The aristocracy of the city now began to consider at Athens. 
Aristides as their firm support ; whilst the popular outcry was in favour 
of the more ostentatious merits of Themistocles. The Athenian con- 
stitution permitted every citizen in his turn to preside in the courts of 
justice ; and we shall here see the difference of principle upon which 



230 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



Aristides' 
distinguish- 
ing epithet 
of The Just. 



His trial by 
ostracism. 



Accused at 
the instance 
of Themis- 
tocles. 



these celebrated chieftains directed their public conduct. " The gods 
forbid," said Themistocles, " that I should ever preside at a tribunal 
where my friends shall not find more favour than strangers." Aristides, 
on the contrary, held that on a seat of justice, the inflexible rale of right 
should be alone his guide. On one occasion of this sort, a plaintiff urged 
in favour of his suit, and in illustration of the evil dispositions of the 
accused, the wrongs which the defendant had committed against Aristi- 
des himself, who instantly interrupted his plea, and exclaimed, " State 
your own cause, and the injuries you yourself have received ; for I sit 
here as judge, and not as accuser; the suit is yours, and not mine.'* 
This rigid and unbending honesty procured him the title, handed 
down to us in history — the high and expressive surname of " The 
Just." Historians record another circumstance singularly illustrative of 
the general esteem of the Athenians for Aristides. On the representation 
of one of the tragedies of iEschylus, a passage descriptive of a high 
state of moral excellence was recited, and the eyes of all the audience 
were almost instinctively turned on Aristides, considering him as a 
living instance of that character which the poet had only imagined. 

Themistocles, in the mean time, repined not at the reputation of his 
rival, which he regarded as empty and unavailing, if not dangerous to 
its owner ; for he was aware that, in proportion to the well-earned fame 
of Aristides, he would but afford a surer mark for the power of that de- 
mocracy of which he should soon become the sole director. With a secret 
satisfaction, therefore, he seems to have encouraged the general admira- 
tion of Aristides, whilst he steadily meditated his destruction ; and the 
tremendous democratical power afforded by the trial of ostracism was 
fixed upon as the means of ultimately accomplishing it. This summary 
mode of popular justice derived its name from ostracon, a tile, the votes 
of the citizens being at first collected by each one writing on a tile, or 
earthen vessel, the name of the person he wished to condemn to banish- 
ment. Every Athenian citizen possessed this power : and if the name 
of any person was found to be written on six thousand tiles or shells, 
the sentence was confirmed by the judges. The author of this law, which 
gave so much power to the people, is not known. Some have ascribed 
it to the Peisistratidae, and others have pretended to trace it to so high 
an antiquity as the time of Theseus. 

The chief accusation brought forward, at the instigation of Themis- 
tocles, was that very reputation for justice and honour which Aristides 
had so nobly acquired. " Aristides," said the agents of Themistocles, 
" has insensibly created himself a monarch, although without pomp or 
guards. From his great reputation for justice, he acts every day as 
umpire between contending parties ; and what constitutes a tyrant but 
the giving of laws ?" Persuaded by this sophistry to apprehend danger 
to the state from the very means of its preservation, Aristides was con- 
demned for the true greatness of his rigid virtue. When the sentence 
was announced to him by the magistrates, Aristides, animated with a 
warm love for his country, exclaimed, with uplifted eyes and hands, 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



231 



" I beseech the gods that the Athenians may never see the day which 
shall force them to remember Aristides !" Ten days (the usual time in 
this case) was allotted to him for his preparation to quit Athens, and 
the usual exile of ten years was pronounced as the period of banishment. Banished for 
Upon the occasion of this trial, a story is recorded of Aristides most ten years * 
strongly exemplifying his philosophy. A clown from a village in Attica, 
who could neither read nor write, dazzled by the eloquence of Themis- 
tocles, advanced, during the trial, toward Aristldes himself (with whose 
person he was unacquainted), and requested that he would mark for 
him the name of the accused upon his shell. Aristides, in surprise, 
asked the peasant of what crime that Athenian citizen had been guilty ? 
or, " has he done you any personal injury ?" said this illustrious patriot. 
" No," replied the peasant, ' ' he has neither done me any injury, nor do 
I know any harm of him ; but I am quite weary with hearing every 
body call him The Just." Aristides smiled, took the shell from the man, 
and wrote upon it, as required, his own name for condemnation. His 
banishment took place B. c. 484. B. c. 484. 

During these transactions at Athens the war with the inhabitants of 
jEgina, which had been begun prior to the Persian invasion, was revived 
with varied success. The Athenians, conducted by Themistocles, had 
proved victorious in several expeditions ; but the iEginetans had avenged 
themselves on the Attic territories by means of their powerful arma- 
ments at sea. This advantage did not escape the observation of Themis- 
tocles, and he, at length, proposed to the Athenians, that the profits Themistocles 
arising from the silver mines, which had been hitherto regularly divided Ending 1 !! 
amongst the citizens, should now be solely appropriated to the building Athenian 
of a navy. In support of this measure, he not only urged the advantages navy ' 
gained by the iEginetans, but he bade them remember that the ambition 
of the Persian monarch was yet unextinguished, and admonished them 
to prepare for another and a stronger contest with that power. Darius, 
theh first enemy, was, he remarked, indeed, dead ; but his son Xerxes 
inherited both his father's power, his aversion to the Greeks, and his 
thirst of general conquest ; that monarch was then only tranquil, to 
prepare a steadier blow against their prosperity, and in order that he 
might refresh himself for new exertions in the former cause. These 
arguments prevailed, and the Athenians immediately built a hundred 
ships of considerable size, which gave them quickly the superiority at 
sea over the iEginetans, and furnished, eventually, the most efficient 
means of preserving their own liberties from the power of the Persian 
king. 

It was about three years after the banishment of Aristides, and very Xerxes' 
shortly after these spirited precautions of Themistocles, that Xerxes, ™ e t he §e 
the son of Darius, sent ambassadors, attended by a Greek interpreter, Athenians, 
to all the principal states of Greece, demanding, as usual, earth and b. c. 481. 
water, as tokens of their submission to Persia. Themistocles made it 
his first business to pledge his country to resistance beyond the hope of 
compromise. He exhorted the Athenians to put immediately to death the 



232 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



Xerxes' 
invasion of 
Greece. 



Perplexity 
of the 
Athenian 
affairs. 



Bold advice 
of Themis- 
tocles. 



person who had dared to publish in the Grecian language proposals 
so insulting as those of Xerxes to Grecian independence. Another act 
of defiance followed this. One Arthmius, a citizen of Zele, a town of 
Troas, who had settled in Athens, was detected in trying to corrupt 
the Athenians to the Persian cause. This man Themistocles immediately 
banished from the Athenian territories. His sentence was proclaimed 
throughout the country by sound of trumpet, and his family declared, 
infamous. All hope of accommodation being thus at an end, this able 
general now engaged the several states of Greece to unite hand and 
heart in one grand effort to repel the threatened invasion. In his private 
character, also, Themistocles laboured nobly for the public good. Epi- 
cydes, a powerful orator, but deficient in every other requisite of a 
military leader, had induced the Athenians to appoint him to the supreme 
command of their army. Themistocles, aware of his incapacity, applied 
temptations to his avarice, and, impoverishing his own fortune to raise 
the money, fairly bought off Epicydes from the proposed command, 
and Themistocles was immediately elected to the entire command of 
all its military resources. 

The army of the Persians, in immense force, led by Xerxes himself, 
was now preparing to pour down upon Greece by the memorable straits 
of Thermopylae. Themistocles, on learning this, strongly urged the pro- 
priety of all the disposable force of Athens quitting the city in a body, 
and embarking on board their fleet ; but the unwillingness of many of 
the Athenians to leave their homes completely frustrated this design, 
and his proposal was rejected. The allied forces had nearly reached 
Tempe, in Thessaly, when the news arrived that the straits of Ther- 
mopylae had been forced, and that not only Thessaly but Boeotia had 
been overrun by the invaders ; tidings which determined the troops 
both of Sparta and Athens to retreat to their respective cities without 
delay. 

The Athenians were now reduced to considerable perplexity and 
distress. To attempt to cope with the immense force of the Persians 
by land, and on an equal footing, was little less than madness. The only 
spot whereon they could have engaged so superior a power with any 
prospect of success, the tardy movements of their army had not suffered 
them to reach. Athens was undefended by walls or any kind of fortifi- 
cations, and its confined citadel was protected only by a wooden palisade. 
Themistocles appears to have formed an early opinion ■ respecting the 
conduct now best to be adopted ; and only to have refrained from 
declaring it, until the most favourable opportunity should be afforded. 
In all cases of emergency the Athenians hastened to consult the Delphic 
oracle for advice, which now pronounced, in two separate answers, 
" that Athens was destined to destruction," but "the Athenians might 
yet be safe within wooden walls." It is impossible to repress the conjec- 
ture that Themistocles expected, and had, perhaps, occasioned this 
answer, so confirmative of his previous counsels. He did not fail to give 
it immediately the obvious interpretation — that the Athenians should 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



233 



repair to their fleet, within whose walls of wood they might yet seek 
safety and independence. There was not, however, wanting a party 
who now strongly opposed this advice. They insisted that the palisades 
by which the citadel was surrounded, were clearly the wooden walls to 
which the oracle referred ; and unwilling to abandon their houses, their 
temples, and their gods to the ravages of an exasperated enemy, a large 
majority of the Athenians determined to defend their city to the utmost. 
Baffled, but not defeated in his project, Themistocles, finding arguments His schemes 
unavailing, did not hesitate to employ those questionable means which the pSc 
superstition has, in all ages, afforded to state policy. He gained over to consent to it, 
his project the priests who officiated at the temple of Athene, and these 
venerated impostors publicly reported that the sacred dragon refused 
to eat his consecrated cakes ; and, finally, as the most explicit augury of 
all, that this favourite of their tutelary goddess, had quitted the temple, 
making its way directly to the sea. Worthy interpreters of this un- 
worthy tale, they announced this circumstance as denoting that the 
goddess herself was no longer to be considered as residing at Athens, 
but as having directed the Athenians to repair to the sea to seek her 
future protection. 

So well-timed were these artifices, that by degrees the opponents of 
Themistocles were entirely silenced, and the populace became as eager 
for the adoption of his measures as before they were urgent against , 
them. However, Cyrsilus, an orator, vehemently opposed the decree in 
question, and, either corrupted by the gold of Xerxes, or through pusil- 
lanimity of spirit, proposed submission to the Persian monarch. This 
so enraged the citizens, that they stoned the speaker to death ; and the 
women of Athens are said to have inflicted the like punishment upon 
his innocent wife. Once determined, the citizens were quickly in full 
preparation for the extraordinary mode of warfare recommended. 
Everything was conveyed on board the fleet, while their liberty and The 
the name of Athenian citizens were now declared to be all that was ^barkon 
worth their anxiety. Money, however, being wanted for their final jj ^ d their 
outfit, the solemn council of the Areopagus was called, to raise the 
necessary supplies; and so large a sum was collected that eight 
drachms was given to every man as he went on board the fleet. But 
Themistocles did not deem this sufficient for the expedition ; and, 
under cover of the authority of the priests, he asserted that the shield 
of Athene had been stolen, and a warrant was granted to hirn to 
search the recesses of the temple, that he might regain it. Under this 
pretence he took away all the money he discovered in his search, and 
made amends for his deceit by distributing it equally amongst his 
countrymen. 

An act of justice, too, with regard to Aristides, was one of the best Aristi<l3s 
features of this state of the public mind. Themistocles now proposed reca 
a decree to recall all those citizens who had been banished from their 
country ; and Aristides, whose means of becoming a powerful foe to 
Greece were now justly feared by those who had treated him with so 



234 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



much indignity, rejoined his countrymen in their exigency. Themis- 
tocles hailed his return with warm protestations of attachment, and 
every heart glowed with emulation in the common cause of liberty. 

Thus nobly freighted, the Athenian fleet, under Themistocles, hastened 
to join that of the Spartans, commanded by Eurybiades ; and made sail 
with them immediately for the Eubcean shore, with the hope of im- 
peding the passage of the Persian fleet through the neighbouring straits. 
Here the conduct of the Athenian leader was characterised by the 
adroitness which had previously distinguished him. Eurybiades, the 
Spartan admiral, in contradiction to the proposed plan, had refused to 
remain longer on this station ; and the Eubceans, fearful of being given 
up to the ravages of the Persian army, applied next to Themistocles, 
whom they presented with thirty talents, as a reward for his inter- 
ference on their behalf. Themistocles hesitated not to accept the 
Abie ^ ^ money. Five talents he gave Eurybiades, and thereby induced him to 
Themistocles pursue his first plan ; while with the three talents he bribed Adiaman- 
at Arte- thus, the Corinthian commander ; and the remaining sum of twenty- 
two talents he devoted to the general interests of the expedition. On 
leaving this station, Themistocles adopted an artifice which proved of 
no little service to the common cause. Certain stones were set up on 
the coast of Ionia, with inscriptions, entreating the Ionians to desert 
from the Persian tyrant, or, if they could not accomplish this, they 
were implored to baffle the plans of Xerxes by their tardiness in his 
cause. The address concluded by reminding these people that the 
Athenians, by protecting the revolt of Ionia against Darius, first brought 
the resentment of the Persian monarchy upon themselves. This was 
a stratagem calculated to excite distrust in the minds of the Persians, 
an effect which, in the end, it fully produced. 
Debate of On leaving Artemisium, another and a stronger diversity of opinion 
resp^tm 5 " prevailed amongst the commanders respecting their future course, 
their course. Eurybiades had been made chief of the combined fleet ; but he soon 
evinced himself unequal to this important trust. On the approach of 
the Persian armament, he recommended that the allies should retreat 
towards Corinth, and join the land-forces there, since he deemed it 
inadvisable to risk their combined strength in attacking the maritime 
forces of Persia. Themistocles recommended an immediate action at 
sea, when Eurybiades, in relation to the supposed imprudence and 
impetuosity of our hero, observed that " Such as rise up before the 
rest to start at the Olympic games are generally lashed for their teme- 
rity." To which Themistocles quickly answered, " True ; but let us 
recollect, Eurybiades, that those who are left behind in the race are 
never crowned with victory." The Spartan, provoked at the freedom 
of this reply, lifted up his staff", and prepared to strike the speaker : 
Themistocles, with the utmost calmness, exclaimed, " Yes, strike if 
you think proper, but afterwards hear me." This mixture of calmness 
and earnestness produced the desired effect, and Eurybiades gave 
instant and serious attention to the arguments of his competitor. Yet 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



235 



the Greeks in general were so alarmed at the destruction of the city 
of Athens, and at the ravages committed upon the Athenian territories, 
that a bold and final stratagem of Themistocles alone kept their naval 
force together. By means of a Persian prisoner in the Grecian fleet, Themis- 
named Sicinus, he ventured to open a communication with the camp stratagem 
of the enemy, and sent a private message to the Persian monarch, to bring on 
importing that the allied fleet were about to disperse and to seek their saLmis. 6 ° 
safety in flight. This he advised the king not to permit, but to take 
advantage of their present confusion, and attack them forthwith in the 
bay of Salamis. Xerxes, completely duped by this message, immediately 
sent two hundred of his ships to block up the straits of Salamis, and 
thus at once compelled the Grecian fleet to adopt that bold measure 
which insured the success of the allied cause ; and Themistocles had 
the honour of receiving the approbation of Aristides, to whom alone 
he had communicated his daring plan. 

Both sides now prepared themselves for the memorable battle that 
ensued. The confederate Greeks were animated by the speeches of 
their leaders, amongst whom Themistocles appeared, with all the 
acquirements of his youth matured by long experience. He repre- 
sented to them that they were about to fight for all that was dear to 
parents, to husbands, to men; that the present liberties of Greece 
were suspended on the issue, with the happiness of their remotest pos- 
terity. Xerxes, on the contrary, who had assured himself of the 
destruction of the Grecians, erected a high throne on the shore near 
Salamis, and commanded the attendance of secretaries to record the 
events of his triumph as they successively occurred. The battle was Battle of 
begun by the Grecians, who sailed from their anchorage early in the Salami !'o 
day, and attacked the Persian line of blockade. The advantage of the B * °* 
Persians consisted in the immense number of their ships, according to 
Herodotus, upwards of one thousand sail ; and that of the Grecians, 
who mustered but about three hundred and eighty vessels, in their 
superior knowledge of maritime affairs and the skill of their com- 
manders. The event was such as might have been expected, and 
proved decisive in favour of the allies. The Persians lost about two 
hundred galleys, which were sunk, and an immense number taken : 
the loss of the allied Grecians amounted only to about forty ships. On 
the side of the Persians the slaughter was immense, while the Greeks 
lost but few men, for the majority of the crews of those ships which 
were destroyed effected their escape by swimming to their companions 
in arms. 

In this contest the Athenians were allowed to bear the most dis- 
tinguished part ; and the iEginetans emulated them in their efforts to 
repel the common enemy, and won the second honours of the day. 
The iEginetans were also serviceable in the chase of the flying Per- 
sians, for their ships being lighter and of swifter sail than those of the 
other states, they ran out to sea, and sank or took the vessels which 
attempted to leave the coast. Never was a victory more complete 



236 



ARISTIDES AND THEM1ST0CLES. 



with such disproportionate means ; because, perhaps, a reverse could 
never have been more desperate in its consequences to the weaker 
side. 

Themistocies It was now proposed by Themistocles that the allied fleet should 
dfcstroy e the ma ke for the Hellespont, and destroy the famous bridge which Xerxes 
bridge at the had thrown across the sea at that place. The effect of this measure 
e espon . have been to have cut off' all communication of the Persians 

with Asia, and to have enclosed their army in Greece itself, so that it 
might afterwards have been destroyed as time and circumstances 
should dictate. Some historians say that this plan being communicated 
to Aristides, that patriot opposed it, although his reasons are not men- 
tioned. Others, with more probability, attribute this opposition to 
the Spartan Eurybiades, from a wish not to drive the enemy to despe- 
ration, and thus to reserve some honours for himself. But the motives 
of Themistocles himself appear, on this point, very dubious. He soon 
perceived that the proposal he had made was more acceptable to the 
Greeks than he wished it to be. He either became fearful of the con- 
sequences of thus enclosing the enemy in the heart of Greece ; or, as 
others suppose, he now wished to secure to himself the friendship of 
the Persian monarch, as likely to afford him an asylum in times of 
adversity and disgrace, of which he could not but foresee the proba- 
bility, from his knowledge of the temper of the Athenian people. At 
this distance of time, however, we may look in vain for any correct 
views of his object ; but his conduct is recorded. He again ventured 
to communicate with Xerxes on the operations of the combined forces, 
Again and sent a specific account of their intention to break down his bridge 
the Perstan anc ^ cut retreat. He also is said once more to have offered his 

movements, advice to the king respecting the Persian policy, and to prescribe his 
immediate return into Asia, whilst he promised to amuse his country- 
men with various projects, and to delay their purposed destruction of 
the bridge as long as possible. In what manner Themistocles, after 
his recent conduct, could have obtained credit with the Persian 
monarch for anything but his bravery, does not appear ; but he did 
not fail immediately to follow his advice, and hastily withdrew his 
army. 

Thus ended the second Persian expedition into Greece. Some 
writers allege that all the exertions of Xerxes to reach the straits in 
time to prevent the breaking of his bridge proved vain ; that he him- 
self was obliged to recross the Hellespont in the boat of a common 
fisherman ; and that his army, diminished and scattered by pestilence, 
famine, and the harassing pursuit of the Greeks, reached Asia in small 
and detached parties, and by such methods as chance and the kindness 
or good fortune of individuals presented. But at this time, it is cer- 
tain, Themistocles not only threw every obstacle in the way of the pro- 
posed destruction of the bridge, but afterwards advised the Athenians 
to discontinue the pursuit of the Persians, and to return home and 
rebuild their city ; a proposal too grateful to their feelings to be 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



237 



rejected — too important to the interests of all Greece to be opposed by 
the other states of the confederacy. 

Relieved from the immediate presence of the invasion, Themistocles, Pub i ic 
aided by the Athenian fleet, levied contributions on all the islands Jj°"™' d s t 
around that had taken part with the Persians, and then returned to him. 
Salamis, the scene of victory, there finally to meet his confederates, 
and to share with them the spoils of the expedition. It was after- 
wards resolved that a general meeting of the Greeks should be held 
on the isthmus, at the temple of Poseidon, where, in a solemn assembly 
of the different chieftains, this important question was proposed, " Who 
best was deserving of the meed of valour ? " Each general, in turn, 
was requested to write down the name of him whom he deemed most 
worthy ; and as every man first wrote down his own name, and after- 
wards inscribed that of Themistocles, the result was that the Athenian 
leader numbered the decided suffrages of almost all Greece. Of Aris- 
tides we find nothing particular recorded during this war, but are told 
that his general behaviour was wise and brave, and that he was ever 
ready to assist Themistocles by his councils. Thus deservedly clothed 
with the chief honours of the war, Themistocles now visited Lace- 
dsemon, where additional applause awaited him. The pride of the 
Spartan people, indeed, would not suffer them to assign in public the 
first place of honour to any one but their own chief, Eurybiades ; but it 
was evident that they privately regarded Themistocles as his superior ; 
and while the prize of valour was awarded with great pomp to Eury- 
biades, that of prudence was given, with distinguished ceremonies, to 
Themistocles. The Spartans crowned him with a wreath of olive ; 
they presented him with the most magnificent chariot in Sparta ; and, 
finally, escorted him home to Athens by a chosen troop of five 
hundred horsemen — an honour never before or afterwards bestowed 
upon any foreigner. 

The Athenians, now repossessed of their country, applied themselves Athens 
to erecting another city on the ruins of that which had been destroyed rebuilt - 
by the late invasion. No sooner, however, did they find themselves at 
rest from foreign annoyance, than the same spirit which prompted their 
gallant defence against the Persians began, as formerly, to show itself 
by internal discontents and tumults. They now discovered that their 
hero, Themistocles, had become too great a favourite, and had sub- 
mitted to bear too much honour from their rivals the Lacedaemonians. 
In his defence, the Athenian chief took occasion to represent to his 
fellow-citizens the necessity of union between the different states of 
Greece, and the importance of the assistance of the Laceda?monians to 
the general cause : " For the war," he observed, " was not at an end, 
whilst the mighty power of the Persian king remained with little 
perceptible diminution." Nor was it long before the foresight of 
Themistocles was again called into practical exercise. Mardonius, the 
Persian general, was still at the head of a powerful army, amounting 
to 300,000 men, chiefly composed of those who had escaped the 



238 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



The Persians ravages of the last campaign, and were therefore inured to hardships 
in great^ 6 " an( ^ more serviceable for future war. With this immense force Mar- 
force, donius rested on the frontiers of Thessaly, and still threatened the 
Grecian states. Perceiving, however, the great proportion which the 
state of Athens bore to the whole power of the Grecian confederacies, 
he determined to detach that state from the general cause. With this 
view the Persian general employed, as an ambassador to Athens, Alex- 
ander, king of Macedon, who was a great favourite with the Athenian 
people. On the arrival of the Macedonian prince, he was received 
with great state by the Athenians, and with all the hospitality due to 
a decided friend ; but on their learning that he was entrusted with an 
embassy from the Persian monarch, they delayed to give him audience 
until deputies from the Lacedaemonians could attend. On the opening 
of his commission, Alexander strongly recommended the Athenians 
from himself, in personal friendship, to comply with the offers of 
Xerxes, as the only method by which they could save themselves from 
destruction. The Spartan ambassadors, after showing how unjust a 
thing it would be if the Athenians, who had been the cause of the 
war with Persia, should now forsake the common interest, concluded 
by expressing their confident hopes that the Athenians, a free nation 
themselves, would never degrade themselves by becoming the means 
by which their allies might be enslaved. To Alexander, Aristides, in 
the name of his countrymen, replied, that " as long as the eternal sun 
should hold his course they would never enter into alliance with 
Xerxes, but resist his forces by every effort of their own." Turning 
then to the Spartan deputies, he assured them them they would never 
enter into the Persian nor abandon the Grecian confederacy. 
The Persians Mardonius was no sooner made acquainted with the failure of this 
Greece* mt ° embassy than, pursuant to his orders, he marched from Thessaly direct 
upon Thebes, and by signal-fires, lighted as he advanced, he gave 
Xerxes, who was now lying at Sardis, to understand his movements. 
As he entered Attica, he wasted the country around with tenfold fury, 
levelling with the ground every stone which he found standing upon 
another. In this manner he approached rapidly to Athens itself ; and 
the Spartans were so slow in sending their succours, that the Athenians 
The were forced to retreat to Salamis, and again left their city a prey to the 

retSt© 8 Persians. Here they formed an army of their citizens, already assem- 
Saiamis. bled in considerable force under Aristides ; and they received another 
messenger from Mardonius, who repeated the offers which had been 
before made to them by Alexander. It was hoped that the extremities 
which the Athenians had now suffered would have softened that spirit 
of independence which dictated their former answer, but the Persian 
embassy found them rather exasperated than subdued ; and they did 
not hesitate to stone to death one Lycidas, a senator, for basely pro- 
posing that the message of Mardonius should be taken into considera- 
tion ; whilst his wife and children (as in the case of Cyrsilus) suffered 
the same death from the women. The Spartans w r ere, in the mean 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



239 



time, so dilatory in their movements, that it was judged necessary to 
send ambassadors to urge their appearance in the field. On their 
arrival at Sparta, the Athenian deputies found that the Spartans had 
been employing the previous time of this delay in throwing up walls 
and fortifications athwart the Peloponnesian isthmus, to protect their 
own district, whilst that of Athens was already destroyed. At length, 
however, the Spartan army, consisting of about 10,000 men, about half 
of them from the city, and the rest from the adjacent country, together 
with about 7,000 Helots, put themselves in march towards the Per- 
sians, and halted at the isthmus. Thither also came the Athenian 
army from Salamis, and all the confederated force of the Greeks, making 
together about 100,000 men. 

Mardonius learning the approach of this force, and having now T lost The Greeka 
all hope of detaching the Athenians from the general cause, thought it p3 a „ s the 
most prudent to quit Attica ; which, from the inequality of its ground, to retire, 
formed strong obstacles to the evolutions of the cavalry and light troops, 
m which the great strength of his army consisted. And although the 
Persians outnumbered the confederate Greeks in the proportion of three 
to one, Mardonius retired as they advanced, until both armies reached 
the Cithseron mountains in Bceotia, where they halted some time in 
presence of each other. Pausanias, the commander in chief of the 
allies, soon found that in Mardonius he had to contend, not only with 
an enterprising warrior, but with a man well skilled in the use of the 
peculiar resources at his command, and especially in the influence of 
superior riches, which were daily producing desertions from the Grecian 
camp. Mardonius now despatched a party of horse to surprise the 
Grecians in council, and some skirmishes ensued, wherein the Mega- 
rseans were deeply engaged, but were brought off by a select party of three 
hundred Athenians, and the Persian officer, Masistius, was slain. A sharp 
contest took place around the body of the chieftain, both parties being 
equally eager to obtain this trophy of success. New succours of the 
Persian horse came gradually forward into the engagement ; but the 
Grecian forces were ultimately successful, and bore the body of the slain 
in triumph around their camp. Immediately after this affair, the con- 
federates retreated, and pitched their camp upon the territories of Platsea, 
the Persian cavalry continually harassing their rear. A council of war 
was now held by Mardonius, who, tired of the desultory warfare which 
had been so long pursued, and anxious to strike a blow which might 
redeem his reputation, determined to risk an engagement. It was re- 
solved, therefore, that the Persians should commence the attack imme- victory of 
diately, a determination that was quickly known in the Grecian camp. P1 atj»a. 
The Athenians stood opposed to the Boeotian and Thessalian allies of 
the Persians, but they requested that the Spartans would exchange 
situations with them, by which the Athenian force would stand con- 
fronted with the Persians themselves, and the Spartans with the Thes- 
salians and Boeotians — enemies with which, respectively, they were 
most accustomed. The bribes of the Persians, however, soon brought 



240 



ARIST1DES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



Victory of this intended movement to the ears of Mardonius , and he instantly 
1'iataea. measures to render it of no avail. These and other harassing 

movements, compelled the Greeks again to retreat on the river Molce, 
still followed by the Persian horse. On the ensuing day the famous 
battle of Plataea took place. Mardonius, encouraging his men by re- 
presenting the Greeks as flying before them, pressed forward with his 
cavalry upon the Spartans and Tega?ans near the temple of Demeter, 
when the Spartans turned furiously upon their enemy. The Athenians 
and other Greeks brought the allies of the Persians to action, and the 
right became general and severe. Mardonius was mounted on a white 
charger, surrounded by his choicest troops, and becoming thus an object 
of peculiar note, was slain in a charge made upon him by the Tegaeans. 
On the death of their general, universal disorder and a total rout took 
„ place amongst the Persian horse, a small remnant of whom alone 
escaped, under the conduct of Artabazus, and found refuge in a strong 
position near the Hellespont. On the other side of the field, too, the 
Persians had been beaten, but had made good their retreat to their 
fortified camp. Here the Corinthians, the Megaraeans, and the rest of 
the Greeks, animated by the success of their friends, furiously attacked 
them, and the Spartans shortly afterwards came up to their assistance ; 
but the enemy defended themselves with resolution, until the appear- 
ance of the Athenians decided the fate of the day. Accustomed to the 
tactics of the enemy, they broke into the entrenched camp, and a tre- 
mendous slaughter of the invaders followed. The sumptuous pavilion 
of the fallen general was amongst the spoils of the enemy. The Man- 
tinaeans and the Eleans had the misfortune to arrive on the field after 
the close of the action ; and as they returned home partakers neither of 
the spoil nor the glory, they are said to have banished their leaders from 
the soil, as the authors of their disgrace. This great victory was ob- 
b. c. 479. tained on the 22d of September, B.C. 479. 

It is remarkable that on the very day of the victory of Plataea, 
another defeat of the Persians took place, equally important in its con- 
sequences, and in the bravery with which it was accomplished : this 
Battle of was the naval battle of Mycale, near Samos. This was chiefly won by 
Mycale. ^he valour of the Spartans, instigated by the example of Themistocles 
at the straits of Salamis, and supported by the great personal services 
of Aristides. The Persian fleet had been drawn together under the 
promontory of Mycale, very near to the temple of the goddess Demeter, 
and was strongly secured on the side of the sea by a kind of mole. 
Leutychides, the Spartan king, the Grecian admiral, aware that it had 
rendered the enemy inaccessible by shipping, determined to attack them 
on the land. He, therefore, disembarked his forces, and proclaimed 
aloud, by his herald, an invitation to the Ionians to join the Greeks, or, 
at least, to withdraw themselves from supporting the Persians. It is 
remarkable, that the victory of Plateea had been achieved near the 
temple of Demeter, in Boeotia,and the Grecians, were now superstitiously 
taught to believe that the same goddess was expected to be alike pro- 



AEISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



241 



pitious to a similar combat at Mycale in Samos. Thus encouraged, 
the confederates advanced towards the Persians by the sea-shore, and 
charged them so desperately, that the enemy were soon obliged to 
retreat to their camp. Nor were they here protected from the impe- 
tuosity of the assailants, who rushed through the fortifications, and soon 
proved victorious on all sides. They penetrated to the fleet and de- 
stroyed it, whilst the army of the Persians, and Tigranes their general, 
with an immense body of their troops, were slaughtered, either in the 
camp or on board their ships. 

By this conquest, the Ionians were enabled to declare themselves in Ionia 
favour of their ancient allies the Greeks, a circumstance which gave ^aiu! 
occasion to some disputes between the Athenians and the Spartans. 
The latter, according to the general severity of their disposition, in- 
sisted on punishing the Ionians for their revolt, either by refusing all 
offers of their alliance, and giving them up to the mercy of the Persians, 
or, at least, by transporting them from their own country and landing 
them on those shores, the inhabitants of which had taken part against 
the Greeks, and which were now considered as forfeited to the con- 
querors. The Athenians were inimical to both these proposals. They 
could not forget that Ionia had been formerly a colony belonging to 
their own state, and both the schemes of the Spartans respecting it 
were equally destructive of the advantages which had formerly been 
derived by Athens from the Ionians, and might again be reaped. They 
were, besides, jealous of the interference of the Spartans, who pro- 
perly were an inland power, in the affairs of the colonies. So urgent, 
therefore, were their arguments against the Spartan propositions, and 
so necessary was their co-operation considered against the common 
enemy, that the cause of the Ionians prevailed : they were received into 
the confederacy, and were promised such assistance from time to time 
as should effectually secure their territories and their independence. On 
the settlement of these affairs, the Lacedaemonians retired to Laconia ; 
but the Athenians, under the command of Xanthippus, determined to 
push their fortunes further. Partly instigated by the hope' of plunder, 
and partly by the desire of revenge, they crossed over to the Cherso- 
nesus, and invested the island of Samos, which had taken part with 
the Persian invaders. The siege proved long and laborious ; but at 
length the resolution and skill of the Athenians prevailed; they 
sacked the island, and took its chiefs Oibazus and Artayctes prisoners. 
Here they reaped immense spoil, and returned home laden with every 
variety of treasure. 

The freedom of Greece appeared now to be established on a firm 
foundation. The splendid victories of Platasa and Mycale had not only 
weakened the power of Persia and elevated the confidence of the Greeks, 
but had likewise impressed upon their enemies an idea of their strength, 
which confounded the future hopes of every invader. Although a 
desultory war was still continued, the Greeks now became in turn the 
aggressors, and after having brought home their wives and children, the 
[h. g.] r 



242 



APJSTIDES AND THEM1ST0CLES. 



strength. 



proposes to 
fortify the 
city. ' 



Athens rises Athenians began to rebuild their city, which, by the advice of Themis- 
proTperity 10 tocles, they accomplished with a degree of magnificence hitherto 
and great unknown. Themistocles still aided every project which would throw 
additional power into the hands of the people, and Aristides himself, 
although attached to the aristocracy, yet, from the experience he had 
Happy union obtained of the genius of his countrymen, coincided with most of the 
ot her chiefs. p rac tical schemes of his rival ; he proposed that the high magistracy 
of the archons should be henceforth chosen without distinction of rank, 
from amongst the body of the people, and that every citizen should 
hold a full share of the government ; and thus was another important 
concession made to the power of the democracy. 
Themistocles Themistocles chose this moment of concord to suggest a resolution 
that the city should be immediately fortified, and, concealing his mo- 
tives, alleged that it might prevent the destruction of Athens in case of 
any future invasion. Unaware of the full importance of the measure, 
the people were sufficiently influenced by the motives assigned, and 
they eagerly began the fortifications. But their former rivals, the 
Lacedaemonians, were more quick-sighted. When the report of the in- 
tended scheme reached the Spartans, stimulated by envious forebodings, 
they immediately despatched ambassadors to divert the Athenians from 
their purpose. These deputies opened their business with professions 
of disinterested zeal for the general welfare of Greece ; they represented 
this measure as pregnant with danger to the confederated states : as 
affording a base for strategic operations on any future invasion of the 
Persians. But the Athenians, with Aristides and Themistocles within 
their walls, were not to be convinced by these arguments; and the 
Spartan deputies, observing that the work proceeded with increased 
rapidity, peremptorily forbade the works to be continued; an inter- 
ference which occasioned considerable tumult amongst the people. 
Themistocles took the lead on this occasion with his usual address ; he 
recommended the citizens to temporise with Sparta ; and, as they were 
not yet in a condition to carry on a w T ar and to erect a fortress at the 
same time, to compliment their rival with a temporary submission ; 
observing, that when their walls were once erected they would be 
enabled to defy her encroachments. The Athenians readily followed 
this policy, and the ambassadors returned to Sparta with a solemn 
assurance that the proposed work should not proceed, until by a coun- 
ter-embassy, which the Athenians would hereafter commission, full 
reasons should be given for the adoption of the proposed fortifications. 

Themistocles, the adviser of the promised embassy, was the first to 
offer his services on the occasion. He immediately left Athens for 
Sparta, but recommended his countrymen to delay sending the rest of 
the ambassadors, whilst he should divert the attention of the Spartans 
from the fortifications, which, notwithstanding their former engagement, 
he urged the Athenians forthwith to finish. These dishonourable sug- 
gestions were not lost upon his countrymen. To complete their walls, 
neither houses, nor sepulchres, nor temples were spared ; the labour was 



Opposition 
of the 
Spartans. 



Themistoclfs 
undertakes 
an embassy 
to Spaita. 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



243 



continued night and day, in which even the women and children were 
compelled to assist. Under these extraordinary exertions, Athens 
presented ramparts of such strength, that the citizens now sent off the 
remaining ambassadors to Themistocles, who had, from time to time, 
delayed the proposed audience with the Lacedaemonians. But tidings 
of the Athenian breach of faith had reached Sparta before them, although 
the completion of the walls was not known ; and the ambassadors were 
soon summoned before the Ephori, the highest and most powerful 
magistracy in the Spartan state. Themistocles and his colleagues 
were here warmly upbraided with the treachery of their countrymen, to His crooked 
which they replied by a bold denial of the alleged facts ; Themistocles disgraceful 
enforcing this additional violation of truth by appealing to his compeers P olic y- 
so recently arrived from Athens. To the Ephori he loudly declaimed 
against the folly of listening to the uuauthenticated rumours which were 
abroad, and he advised them to send back to Athens trusty Lacedae- 
monian deputies to inspect the city, together with the Athenian am- 
bassadors, his colleagues. He, himself, offered to stay at Sparta as a 
hostage for the truth of his assertions. Themistocles then privately in- 
structed his companions, that upon their return to Athens, they should 
boldly detain the Lacedaemonian deputies until that government should 
give him up. His advice was exactly pursued ; and when the Athenian 
leader received the tidings of the arrival of his colleagues, he demanded 
an audience of the magistrates of Lacedaemon, and at once avowed and 
justified the conduct of his countrymen. " By my advice it was," said 
he, " that the Athenians acted, when, conformably to the general law of 
nations, they secured their public and private property with a wall ; 
nor can this be a disadvantage, but rather a benefit to the other states of 
Greece, for Athens is their bulwark." As to the falsehood which he 
had practised, he replied by the declaration, "that for our country, all 
tilings were lawful ;" and concluded by advising them to send him home 
in peace, if they wished the safe return of those deputies which had 
just been sent to Athens. Irritated at the duplicity of their rivals, the 
Spartans were reluctantly obliged to comply with this insulting advice. 

Themistocles returned in triumph to Athens ; he had placed his Returns to 
country in security from any foreign attack by land ; and seems to have ^'JT^yg 
matured in his absence a variety of other plans for her aggrandisement, 
which he now represented as ripe for disclosure. Adimanthus was 
archon ; and it was in the seventy-fifth Olympiad, when Themistocles 
made a long oration to the people, and proposed that series of 
measures, which rendered Athens the mistress of the Grecian states. 
He alleged to the assembled citizens, that it would be imprudent to 
make public the whole of the projects he had formed for their prospe- 
rity ; he entreated them, therefore, to select two persons of eminence to 
whom he might impart his plans. The assembly immediately named is associated 
Aristides and Xanthippus as his coadjutors, to whom Themistocles Aristides and 
proposed to widen the Pyraeus into a capacious harbour for vessels of XratMpjnw 
burden, and then to join it to the city by extensive walls; considering plan?. 1 *" UC 

R 2 



244 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



it preferable for this purpose to the other port. He pressed upon his 
coadjutors the necessity of increasing the Athenian navy, if they wished 
to continue any protection to the Ionians, or to obtain any decided 
influence in the islands of Greece : and exhorted them to look to that 
element alone as affording the greatest facilities for Athens to become 
the most powerful of the Grecian states. 

Aristldes 1 and Xanthippus, equally zealous for the Athenian glory, 
listened with eager admiration to the schemes of Themistocles, and in 
their turn assured the people that his projects would prove eventually 
of the greatest consequence to the state. The improvement of the port 
was first undertaken, and a conciliatory embassy despatched to the 
Lacedaemonians ; and, before the extent of the work was thoroughly 
known at Sparta, the harbour of Pyraeus, by the uncommon exertions 
of Themistocles, was enlarged, fortified, and finished. 

About this time was held a council of the Amphictyons, wherein it 
was proposed that all the cities which had not resisted the Persian 
invasion should be deprived of their right of sending deputies to the 
council. This measure Themistocles decidedly opposed ; for if Argos, 
Thebes, and other cities which had been inactive in the late contest, 
should now lose their voice in the council, it was clear that the Lace- 
daemonians would rule the whole. 

But the Greeks, although so much occupied with these important 
transactions among themselves, found time and means to continue the 
war with Persia. The defeats at Plataea and Mycale had disabled the 
enemy from again invading Greece, and now the confederates, in their 
turn, became the assailants. The Grecian fleet, consisting of thirty gal- 
leys of Attica, and twenty belonging to Sparta and the other Pelopon- 
nesian states, were commanded by Pausanias, the Lacedaemonian 
chieftain, who had distinguished himself at Plataea. Aristldes (in con- 
junction with Cimon, the son of Miltiades), commanded the Athenian 
.fleet under him : with this force the confederates invaded Cyzicus, 
where they took and destroyed many towns ; and then proceeded to 
ravage Byzantium, another colony belonging to the Persians. The 
haughty conduct of the Lacedaemonian leader, in this expedition, contri- 
buted in a great measure, to ripen the schemes of Themistocles; while the 
moderation of Aristldes irresistibly commanded the admiration of the 
fleet. Pausanias suffered no one to participate in his authority or to 
share in his plans. He scarcely deigned to converse with any other of 
the Greek commanders ; and from this, as well as other causes, was 
strongly suspected of secret intentions in favour of the enemy. He 
insisted, at the same time, upon maintaining the rigid Spartan discipline 

1 Plutarch relates, that in this conference Themistocles communicated to Aris- 
tldes a plan for burning the fleet of the confederates as they lay at anchor in the 
bay of Pagasae, in Macedonia, and thereby to render the Athenian the only naval 
power in Greece. Aristldes, says the historian, in reference to this proposal, 
answered the assembly, that, in his opinion, nothing could be more advantageous 
to the people than to pursue the advice of Themistocles, but nothing more wicked ; 
and the scheme was therefore abandoned. 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



245 



throughout the whole fleet ; and allowed no man of the confederates 
to receive his ratio of provisions, until every Spartan had first been 
served. 

The leaders of the colonists solicited Aristides to interpose his me- He receives 
diation, if not his authority, with Pausanius. An interview between submission 
the Spartan and the Athenian chiefs, however, ended only in a direct from the 
insult to Aristides, from whose remonstrances Pausanias turned haughtily mmcr states - 
away. Irritated by this behaviour, the colonists no longer hesitated to 
seek a milder sway. Uliades, the Samian chief, and Antagoras of 
Chios, leading the way, all the captains of the minor states applied 
directly to Aristides, offering, if he would uphold them, thenceforth to 
acknowledge Athens as the principal city of Greece. Aristides, 
alleged, however, that his duty forbade him to hazard the safety of 
Athens by attempting that in which he had no positive assurance of 
support. " Perform," continued he, " some public and decided act, 
by which you may fix irretrievably your future conduct beyond the 
possibility of recalling it. Do this, and the protection of the Athenian 
arms is yours." Uliades and Antagoras seized an immediate occasion to 
run their ships against the galley of Pausanias, who, in return, threatened 
to punish them severely for this act of insolence and rebellion ; but 
these leaders undauntedly replied, that he had better be silent with 
regard to them, and thank fortune for her favours at Plataea ; for to 
her, rather than to his own talents, was even that victory owing. The 
remembrance of that great action only, they now declared, restrained 
the confederated Greeks from avenging his past tyranny ; and thence- 
forth they renounced all obedience or submission to him. Pausanias, 
astonished at this unexpected boldness, had scarcely time to pursue his 
inquiries respecting it, when the declaration was confirmed by all. 
The colonists now ranged themselves under the command of Aristides, 
and left the Spartan no other resource than to complain to Iris country 
of his supposed wrongs. So imprudent, however, had been his con- Ascendancy 
duct, that the Lacedaemonians themselves could not resent the insult, Athens.* 1 f ° r 
nor regain what he had lost for them. Ashamed to vindicate his con- b. c. 476. 
duct, they were, not sufficiently powerful to revenge the disgrace which 
his folly and pride had brought upon his country ; and the magnificent 
designs of Themistocles were thus daily hastening to their accomplish- 
ment, w T hile his compeer Aristides aided them with the whole weight 
of his character, and essentially contributed to the raising of Athens 
to the supremacy of all Greece. 

Aristides, on his return to the capital, found himself at the very 
summit of popularity. The Athenians had almost forgotten the share 
of Themistocles in the late successful projects, and looked only to him 
who carried them into final effect ; but Aristides too well knew the 
precarious tenure of these favours to regard them in any other light 
than as the means of further service to his country. This great man 
foresaw that the war with Persia was likely to be of long duration, and 
that all the resources of Athens would be required to maintain it. 



246 



ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



AristldSa 1 
plans of 
finance. 



At the sum- 
mit of his 
fame. 



Themistocles 
accused 
by the 
Spartans. 



The necessity of a regulated scheme of finance throughout the different 
states of Greece was therefore evident ; and Aristides was determined 
to devote himself to this purpose, while his popularity was high 
amongst his countrymen. His arguments for a regular system of 
finance carried conviction to all the confederates; and the different 
assessments of the several cities were left unreservedly to Aristides 
himself. Nor did he show himself unworthy of the power with which 
he had been honoured. He so completely satisfied all Greece with the 
equity of his conduct in this affair, that his taxation was emphatically 
named " the happy lot of Greece," although it amounted in the gross to 
the heavy sum of four hundred and sixty talents. He likewise per- 
suaded the states to a solemn oath of confederation and alliance, w T hich 
they readily took. 

The fame of Aristides was now complete. To the applauses of the 
populace he added the esteem of the wise and prudent throughout 
Greece ; his conduct had not only been the source of astonishing suc- 
cess and ascendency to his countrymen in war, but he had originated 
permanent provisions for their unity, security, and peace. Themis- 
tocles, however, could not long endure the settled fame of a rival. 
Although in the adversity of Aristides or of his country, he could 
overlook all jealousies, and had nobly extended his hand to his com- 
petitor, he was one of those friends whom prosperity rather tries than 
multiplies. Envy was his weak side, as a crooked policy was his 
strong one. Now, too, he could not but feel that the origin of the 
popularity of Aristides was the effect of his good fortune in executing 
designs not his own, and which had cost Themistocles all the pain of 
their conception and the hazard of their first development. In a 
general assembly of the people, we find him venturing this remark 
with all the point of an eloquent jealousy. " Aristides," he exclaimed, 
" possesses the merits, not of a man, but of a money chest, which only 
preserves safely what must first be deposited." On another occasion, 
he remarked to Aristides publicly, " that it was the first excellence in 
a general to be able to penetrate the designs of an enemy ;" to which 
Aristides replied, that " this was indeed a most necessary qualification, 
but there appeared to him to be another of equal importance — to have 
clean hands, and not be a slave to money ;" a reflection which is said 
to have touched Themistocles to the quick, as he began now to be 
suspected of intrigues with the king of Persia. 

Some time after this, the Spartans, professing to be animated by the 
common cause of Greece against Persia, accused Themistocles of being 
concerned with their own king, Pausanias, in a treasonable correspond- 
ence with Xerxes. For this offence Themistocles, whose popularity 
had been some time declining, was tried, and, in the agitation of the 
question, some transactions were brought to light, which proved 
clearly that, at least, the guilt of Pausanias had been known to Themis- 
tocles, who never appears, however, to have encouraged the treason. 
On the contrary, he had strongly urged upon Pausanias the enormity 



ARISTIDES AN"D themistocles. 



247 



of his crime, and the necessity of his discontinuing the traitorous cor- 
respondence. From this period his enemies rapidly increased, and 
Cimon, who now began to be distinguished as a patriot, took an active 
part against the fallen favourite of the people. The Lacedaemonians, 
who found sufficient cause for their aversion to this great man in the 
part he had taken in depriving them of their supremacy amongst the 
nations of the confederacy, thought this a happy time to inflame the 
general animosity which existed against him. Nor were the jealousies 
against this great Athenian confined to Sparta or to the democracy of 
his own country. Timocreon, the comic poet of Rhodes, introduced 
him as an object of popular satire, which many instances of his own 
imprudent vanity continually nourished. Themistocles had built a 
temple in the immediate vicinity of his own house, which he dedicated 
to Arstemis, " the giver of the best counsel," a circumstance which was 
interpreted as indicating his utter contempt of the opinion of the 
people. The powerful engine of the ostracism, by which Aristides, had Themistocles 
suffered, was not forgotten at this juncture, and Themistocles was ^™ 1 J~ ^ 
banished from Athens, never more to return. 



The last public act of Aristides is found in his generous conduct Generosity 
towards his great rival in his misfortunes. He not only expressed his to\4rdhtm. 
decided aversion toward the conduct of his persecutors, Cimon and 
AlcmaBon, but was now observed to speak of Themistocles with more 
respect than he had ever before avowed for him ; and it was probably 
through his determined opposition to the efforts of his accusers, that 
Themistocles was permitted to leave Athens in safety. About four 
years after this event Aristides died, and the last honourable testimony Death of 
to his virtues is found in the recorded fact that, although he was at ^ ristld ^g 
his decease at the summit of his prosperity, he died poor ; the expenses 
of his funeral were defrayed by the state, and suitable portions were 
awarded to his son Lysimachus and his two daughters. Some years 
afterwards a grandson of Aristides was reduced to obtaining a liveli- 
hood, by explaining divinations and dreams in the public streets. 

The emnity of the Lacedaemonians towards Themistocles did not Enmity of 
end with his banishment. After being driven from one Grecian j h B e jj^ M 
colony to another, he found a temporary asylum at the court of to Themis- 
Admetus, king of the Molossians. But here, too, the malignity of the tocles ' 
Spartans pursued him. They sent ambassadors to Admetus, denounc- 
ing Themistocles as a traitor, and threatening the Molossians with 
the resentment of the whole Grecian confederacy should they continue 
to harbour their common enemy ; threats too serious to be trifled 
with, although the monarch entertained much personal respect for 
Themistocles. Unwillingly he dismissed his friend from his court ; 
and was only able by private means to assist him with money for his 
escape. Themistocles was now driven to seek shelter in the Persian He seeks 
court ; and Artaxerxes, having learnt the intention of the rejected fugitive { h ® pJrsLa 
to hide himself in Persia, issued a proclamation, offering two hundred court - 
talents for his head. Themistocles now saw that a personal inter- B - c - 4( ^' 



248 



ABISTTDES AND THEMISTOCLES. 



view with the monarch was his only chance of escape. It is said, 
that he owed his safety to the expedient of being conveyed enclosed in 
a litter to Persepolis as a lady of Ionia, belonging to a nobleman who 
attended the king's person. Arrived in safety at the Persian court, 
Difficulties Themistocles presented himself to Artabanns, a nobleman of the court 
overcome. attenc i arice> anc [ solicited an audience of the " great king." This 
officer requested to know by what name he should announce the un- 
known Greek, observing, " that he appeared to be no ordinary 
person." Themistocles answered with promptitude, " No man must 
know my name before the king himself;" a confidence of manner 
which procured him instant admission to Artaxerxes, when the 
following characteristic speech is attributed to the banished hero. " I 
am," said he, undauntedly, " Themistocles the Athenian, banished 
by my country, and persecuted by ungrateful Greece ! To thee, 
mighty monarch, I fly for refuge in my misfortunes ; let the evils I 
have committed on the Persians be forgiven, hi consideration of the 
many benefits I have conferred upon them. It was I who hindered 
the Greeks, after the fatal battles of Platsea and Salamis, from 
pursuing the full advantages of their victories, and from following 
your scattered armies to their utter ruin. Sensible of my distressed 
situation, I come hither to accept mercy from a great and generous 
enemy : I implore you, therefore, to exhibit to the world the nobleness 
of your virtue, rather than the greatness of your revenge." The imme- 
Reception of diate reply of the king is not recorded, but it may be judged to have 
Themistocles k een favourable from the treatment which the fugitive experienced. In 
Artaxerxes. the night following this interview, Artaxerxes is said to have betrayed 
his joy, even in his sleep, by exclaiming thrice, in a voice of exulta- 
tion, " I have, at length, Themistocles the Athenian in my power." 
On the next day, the king sent to invite him to his presence, and 
presented him with the exact sum which he had offered for his 
apprehension. " So much," said he, handing him the two hundred 
talents, " did I promise the man who should bring Themistocles to 
me ; and so much am I in debt to Themistocles himself." The mo- 
narch now assured him, by his interpreter, of his future favour ; and 
desired that he would freely impart to him his sentiments respecting 
the affairs of Greece. This intercourse, however, through a medium 
upon which neither party could fully rely, the wary Athenian pru- 
dently declined. " Discourse," said Themistocles, " is like a Persian 
carpet ; it never appears to advantage, except when it is altogether 
unfolded to the eye." The orator, relying on his own application, 
requested that he might be allowed a year for the study of the Persian 
tongue, at the expiration of which time he engaged freely to disclose 
to the monarch his opinions by his own mouth. This request was 
readily granted ; Themistocles appeared at court at the appointed 
time, and then communicated his ideas to Artaxerxes concern- 
ing the nature of the various nations of the Greeks, their respective 
characters, resources, and dispositions. So great at length was his 



LEONIDAS. 



249 



influence with the monarch, that his name became proverbial amongst 
the Persians to designate a peculiar favourite ; and the kings of Persia, 
when, in future times, they attempted by promises to attach any 
Greek to their cause, were accustomed to declare " that he should 
live with them as Themistocles did with Artaxerxes." 

The tempting honours of a court, however, did not excite Themis- 
tocles to any overt act of hostility against his country. He embraced 
the worship of the Persians, obtained the favour of the queen-mother 
as decidedly as that of the king ; and all the resources of the realm 
appear to have been confided to him. Three rich cities of the empire, 
Magnesia, Myon, and Lampsacus, were emphatically assigned to him 
by the king " to furnish him meat, bread, and wine, in reference to 
the different productions of each. At Magnesia, which brought in 
yearly a revenue of fifty talents, Themistocles fixed his principal 
residence, and there, in the gratitude of his heart to his royal patron, 
living in all the luxury of a Persian satrap of the first rank, he was 
said to have frequently exclaimed to his children, " We had been 
indeed ruined, my little ones, had we not been undone." 

Thus splendidly provided for, he died about the sisty-fifth year of his His death, 
age. Much uncertainty, however, occurs concerning the manner of 
his death. Artaxerxes, it is said, having long planned an expedition 
against the Greeks, intimated his desire to his friend Themistocles to 
undertake the supreme command ; but he felt all its awful difficulties. 
On the one side was a debt of gratitude ; on the other, were the 
recollections of a still beloved country, against which he was deter- 
mined never to lift his hand. He therefore made a "grand festival, 
when suddenly amidst the solemnities of the sacrifice, he is said to 
have poisoned himself, and thus to have expired, guiltless as to his 
country, and (as it was in those barbarous times esteemed) magna- 
nimously and gloriously for himself. Thucydides, who may almost be 
called a contemporary with Themistocles, speaks doubtfully, however, 
of the above fact, and says that he died of a distemper, " although," 
he adds, " some say of poison, taken voluntarily, aware of his being 
unable to accomplish what was required of him by the king." At 
Magnesia, the city wherein he lived, a splendid tomb was erected to 
his memory : but his remains were conveyed to Athens, by his own 
express desire ; over which the Athenians, forgetting his faults, and 
mindful of his services alone, erected a magnificent sepulchre. 

LEONIDAS. 

FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 480. 

Among the heroes of ancient Greece, who were the most distinguished Leonidas. 
for inflexible courage and exalted patriotism, Leonidas must ever hold B. c. 480. 
a pre-eminent rank. His extraordinary self-sacrifice, with that of his 
faithful little band of warriors at the pass of Thermopylae, has not only 
rendered the place itself illustrious, but given additional brightness and 



250 



LEONIDAS. 



glory to the name of Greek, and to the age of splendid achievement. 
The service rendered to his country was no less remarkable than the 
crisis which seemed to demand it, and the honourable failure and con- 
sequent destruction of all who were engaged in the enterprise, merits a 
greater commendation, and has acquired, in fact, a more lasting celebrity 
than many of the most splendid successes. 
A ncestors of The ancestors of Leonidas, according to the testimony of Herodotus, 
Leomdas. were Anaxandrides, Leon, Eurycratides, Anaxandes, Eurycrates, Poly- 
dorus, Alcamenes, Teleclus, Archelaus, Agesilaus, Doryssus, Leobotes, 
Echestratus, Agis, Eurysthenes, Aristodemus, Cleodeeus, Kyllus, and 
Heracles ; and, although eminent names may be recognised in this 
enumeration, the single deed which gave him a matchless fame and a 
glorious sepulchre, invests him with a better distinction than the most 
renowned ancestry. The same historian relates that his elevation to the 
throne of Sparta was accidental ; for as he had two brothers, both of 
superior age to himself, Cleomenes and Dorieus, he had no expectation 
of possessing the government. The former, however, died without 
leaving any male issue, and the latter also ending his days in Sicily, the 
crown devolved on Leonidas, who was older than CJeombrotus, the 
youngest son of Anaxandrides, who had married the daughter of Cleo- 
menes. 

March of At the period when Xerxes was marching against Greece with his 
Xerxes. countless myriad of warriors, against whom it seemed almost impossible 
to offer any effectual resistance, a fit opportunity presented itself for the 
display of that heroic patrotism which inflamed the bosom of Leonidas. 
The Persian king having halted at Therme for the purpose of obtaining 
information, procuring guides, and refreshing his troops, the resolution 
was taken to proceed by Upper Macedonia into Thessaly, the fleet re-' 
maining in the adjoining bay eleven days subsequently to the recom- 
mencement of the march. No sooner had intelligence of the Persian 
movements reached the assembly at Corinth, than the forces under 
Leonidas proceeded to take their station at Thermopylae, while the fleet 
was collected in the road of Artemisium, on the coast of Eubcea, 
several galleys being despatched to watch the enemy. At this mo- 
mentous crisis, the Delphic oracle being consulted, directed them to 
pray to the winds, which might prove powerful coadjutors of the 
Greeks ; an admonition which the confederates received with thankful- 
ness and obedience. Another response ordered the Athenians to pray 
to their son-in-law ; which referred to an invocation of the north wind, 
because Boreas (probably a chief of that name in Thracia) had married 
a daughter of Erechtheus, king of Attica. 
Thermo- In the meantime, Xerxes pressed on through Macedonia to Perrhsebia, 
pylae * and across Thessaly to the neighbourhood of Thermopylae. This spot 
furnished many facilities for a vigorous defence. The ridge of iEta, 
which forms the southern boundary of Thessaly, extends across the 
country from sea to sea, and is in almost every part of it impracticable 
for an army. It is pervaded at nearly right angles by another ridge of 



LEONIDAS. 



251 



a similar description, rising immediately from the Corinthian isthmus, Therm o- 
and passing along under the different names of Helicon, Parnassus, and pyla? - 
Pindus, through the middle of Greece. On the western side, conse- 
quently, Pindus, iEta, and Parnassus, present three formidable ob- 
stacles to the approach into Attica and Peloponnesus. iEta is the only 
difficulty on the eastern side ; and here only a single pass was known, 
termed the gate, situated at the point where the eastern extremity of the 
ridge meets the sea. The Phocians had formerly erected a fortress, and 
stationed a garrison there, and had placed a wall across, where was a 
width of fifty, or nearly fifty feet. On the Thessalian side they had also 
contrived to pour an inundation from some hot springs in the vicinity of 
the mountain. From this circumstance, the name of Thermopylae was 
derived. To the northward of this pass the mountains closed, so as 
scarcely to admit a single carriage, and to the southward they ran into 
the sea. Hence, it is evident that precisely at this spot a very small 
force might successfully resist a very large one, and that the project 
of stopping the progress, if not turning back the legions of Xerxes, 
though sufficiently hazardous, was not an entirely hopeless or despe- 
rate undertaking. This situation possessed also the further advantage 
of a ready communication with the fleet, which rode in a secure haven. 

On the north of Thermopylae is a plain, in one part wide, and in 
another very narrow, enclosed by impassable mountains, called the 
Trachinian rocks, and bordering on the Malian bay. The king had 
fixed his head- quarters at the town of Trachis, to the southward of 
which the river Asopus, after entering a cleft of the mountain, dis- 
charges itself into the Malian bay. Thermopylae is a little beyond the 
town of Anthela, at about the distance of two English miles from the 
junction of the Asopus and the Phoenix. To the north of the mountains, 
Xerxes commanded the country, while the Greeks held the pass. 

Leonidas took with him a body of 300 chosen men, who were all heads preparations 
of families, to which were added Theban troops to the amount of 400, J° r n jj® 
under the command of Leontiades, son of Eurymachus ; but they were 
united in the enterprise rather from motives of policy than feelings of 
confidence, since they were strongly suspected of cherishing secret 
sentiments of hostility against the common cause. In addition to these, 
the troops of the confederate cities, with those of the Thespians, and the 
others already enumerated, amounted to only 8,000, or, at most, to about 
11,000 men; of which 4,000 only were employed at Thermopylae 
against the Persian host ; but these were resolved to conquer or die. 
It appears that the Carnean festival, which was celebrated for seven 
days at Sparta, in honour of Apollo, protracted the advance of the main 
body of the troops, though they intended to follow with the utmost 
expedition. The Olympic games had a similar effect in detaining 
others of the allies who were not anticipating any immediate engage- 
ment at Thermopylae. 

The Persian monarch had made an erroneous calculation of the effect Expectations 
of his preparations, and the hitherto irresistible progress of his army. ot Xerxes - 



252 



LEONID AS. 



He vainly imagined that the Greeks would flee at the first news of his 
approach, without even an attempt at self-defence ; but what was his 
astonishment when he found the passes guarded and himself defied. 
He had indeed been forewarned of the probability of such a measure, 
but, believing in his invincibility, he despised the thought as ridicu- 
lously romantic. The Greeks were indeed at first seized with terror, 
and not only consulted about a retreat, but would most likely have 
accomplished it, but for the skill of their general. The Peloponnesians 
were anxious to return and guard the isthmus, which was, however, 
resolutely opposed by the Phocians and Locrians, whom Leonidas pre- 
vailed upon to continue at the post of honour ; at the same time, 
adopting the very proper precaution of despatching messengers to the 
different states to procure necessary supplies. 

At this juncture, the Persian king sent a horseman to ascertain the 
numbers of the enemy, and to give advice of their movements. Those 
who were stationed within the entrenchments he was unable to discover, 
but he brought a report of those who were on the outside. These 
Occupation were the Lacedaemonians, some of whom were performing gymnastic 
of the Lace- ex ercises, while others were en^ao-ed in combiner their hair, which was 
explained to him by Demaratus as their ordinary practice, previous to 
their undertaking any dangerous enterprise. Plutarch mentions it as a 
saying of Lycurgus, that long hair added grace to handsome men, and 
made those who were ugly, more terrific. This is well alluded to in the 
poem of Leonidas by Glover : — 



By chance 



The Spartans then composed th' external guard ; 
They in a martial exercise employed, 
Heed not the monarch and his gaudy train, 
But poise the spear protended as in fight, 
Or lift their adverse shields in single strife, 
Or, trooping forward, rush, retreat, and wheel 
In ranks unbroken, and with equal feet : 
While others calm beneath their polish' d helms 
Draw down their hair, whose length of sable curl 
O'erspread their necks with terror. 

After having thus reconnoitred the position of the Greeks, Xerxes 
waited four days, in expectation of their availing themselves of this 
opportunity to make good their retreat. He could not entertain a 
moment's doubt, but that the knowledge of Xerxes' armament would 
induce them to disperse, and leave him an undisputed entrance. 
Xerxes' In this interval, he adopted every expedient to gain over Leonidas, 
to gafiTover §^ vm § mm * ne mos ^ magnificent promises, especially urging his de- 
Leonidas. sertion, by the assurance that he should obtain the sovereignty of all 
Greece. It is easy to imagine with what scorn such proposals would 
be received by Leonidas. He was afterwards commanded by a herald,, 
in the name of Xerxes, to come and deliver up his arms, to which the 
laconic general replied, " Come and take them." On the fifth day of 
the Persian's inactivity, observing that the Greeks continued on their 



LEONIDAS. 



253 



post, merely, as he imagined, from imprudent rashness, he became 
much exasperated, and ordered a detachment of Medes to go and bring 
them alive into his presence. This command, however, was more 
easily given than executed. The attack was made, but ended in 
the disgrace of the assailants, who lost a considerable number of men. 
A reinforcement was sent, but without producing the effect ; and it 
became evident, observes the historian, that " Xerxes had indeed many 
men, but few soldiers." The Persian troops, which had obtained the 
distinctive appellation of the " immortal band," under the command of 
Hydarnes, were next ordered to the assault, and a certain and easy HydamSs. 
victory was confidently expected : but their success was no better than 
that of their predecessors ; their superior numbers, as the Greek his- 
torian candidly admits, being of little or no advantage, on account of 
the confined extent of the field of action, and the shortness of their 
spears, in comparison with those of their enemies. Their conduct was 
highly spirited, though their efforts were unsuccessful ; for, after 
making every kind of attack they could devise, they were compelled, 
at length, however reluctantly, to relinquish the attempt. A few only 
of the Spartans fell, whilst the loss of the Persians was prodigious. 
The conflict was renewed the next day, with fresh troops on the part 
of the invading enemy, who indulged the hope that weariness and 
wounds would have disabled the defenders of Thermopylae from any 
vigorous resistance, but they were obliged again to withdraw from the 
terrible conflict. 

Amidst the perplexities that now encompassed the Persian monarch, Treachery of 
treachery came to his relief. Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, a E P hialtes - 
Melian, influenced by the hope of a great recompense, pointed out a 
path over the mountain leading directly to Thermopylae. It was a cir- 
cuitous and difficult route, but had been used by the Thessalians on 
some occasions when they invaded Phocis for plunder; and though 
afterwards neglected, was well known by the Phocians, whom Leonidas 
had appointed to defend it. It commenced at the cleft in the rock 
where the river Asopus entered ; whence it wound up the hill called 
Anopea, and proceeded along the ridge between iEta, on one side 
of the Trachinian rock, while on the other, it descended to Alpeni, 
the first town of Locris. By adopting this course, the Persians were 
likely to obtain an access to the opposing and hitherto resistless force, 
which they might with probability calculate upon as insuring the 
victory to their innumerable hosts. These were most welcome tidings, 
and were no sooner heard, than acted upon by the generals of Xerxes. 
The enterprise being committed to Hydarnes, he marched, under the 
cover of evening, with a strong detachment, and by day-break attained 
nearly to the summit of the mountain Anopaea, where the Phocian 
guard was placed, to the amount of 1,000 men, but from whom the 
Persian troops were screened by the oaks which everywhere covered 
it. The first intimation of the approach of their enemies was the 
bound of their feet on the fallen leaves. The Phocians instantly flew 



254 



LEONIDAS. 



to arms, which at first checked the eager haste of the Persians who had 
not expected that any measures had been taken to defend this narrow 
passage ; but finding from the treacherous Ephialtes, that they were not 
Lacedaemonians, Hydarnes soon recovered from his panic, and drew up 
his troops in order of battle. The Phocians retreated up the mountain 
to a more elevated spot, thinking, by this means, to gain an advantage 
over their assailants ; but availing himself of this indiscreet movement, 
Hydarnes marched onwards, and descended the opposite side of the 
mountain without opposition. 

Early in the morning the scouts conveyed the unwelcome news that 
the enemy had passed the Phocian guard, and were descending towards 
the plain. A council of the Grecian generals was immediately sum- 
moned, who were greatly divided in opinion : some urging resistance, 
others retreat. Leonidas conceiving that himself and his Spartan troops 
could not retreat with honour, whatever might be the event, resolved 
to remain. He is said also to have been influenced by an oracular 
decision which was fresh in his memory, by which the Spartans were 
informed that either their king must die, or Sparta be vanquished by 
the barbarians. 

Glover has accordingly put into the mouth of the hero the following 
exclamation, on hearing that the enemy had succeeded in his purpose, 
through the treachery of his professed adherents : — 

I now behold the oracle fulfill'd — 

Then art thou near, thou glorious sacred hour, 

Which shall my country's liberty secure ! 

Thrice hail, thou solemn period ; thee the tongues 

Of virtue, fame, and freedom shall proclaim, 

Shall celebrate in ages yet unborn. 

The Thespians were the only body of the Grecian confederates that 
willingly remained with Leonidas and his Spartans in this extremity : 
the Thebans, indeed, were with him, but Herodotus affirms, though 
Plutarch is indignant at his representation, that they were detained 
very reluctantly, and as hostages. The Thespians, under Demophilus, 
emulated the zeal of their brethren, and perished in the same glorious 
conflict. 

Attack of At sunrise, according to the Persian habit, Xerxes offered up a 
Xerxes. so lemn libation, and then dismissed the troops to await orders. About 
the middle of the forenoon, he set forth from his camp, and calculating 
that Hydarnes, with his detachment, might now have arrived in the rear 
of the Greeks, he commanded an attack to be made in front. Leonidas 
now advanced much further from the intrenchments than he had done 
in any preceding contest, judging that in a wider space he should have 
a superior opportunity of attacking the enemy. Multitudes of the Per- 
sians fell as they were whipped on to the encounter, by officers stationed 
for the purpose in their rear, many perished in the sea, and many others 
were trodden under foot by their own troops. Aware that destruction 
was at hand, from those who had made the circuit of the mountain, 



LEONID AS. 



255 



the Greeks exerted themselves to the utmost, and performed prodigies 
of valour ; and when their spears were broken, they had instant re- 
course to their swords. 

Leonidas himself fell early in the engagement, but not before he had Fail of 
had the opportunity of signalizing himself by extraordinary efforts ; Leonidi 
and with him many Spartans of distinction met their fate. The battle, 
nevertheless, continued, and with equal zeal on the part of the de- 
fenders, till Hydarnes presented himself in the rear with his detachment, 
when they retreated to the wall. At this juncture, the Thebans who 
had been detained as hostages by the Spartans, solicited mercy of their 
conquerors ; but many were killed in the very act of surrendering, while 
the remainder were made prisoners. The surviving Lacedaemonians 
and Thespians gained a rising ground, which afforded them the means 
of some further temporary resistance, till they were slain to a man. 

Two of the brothers of Xerxes perished while they were contending 
for the body of Leonidas. In this severe contest, the superior valour 
of the Greeks enabled them to repel the Persians no fewer than four 
times, till the party in their rear approached under the guidance of the 
traitorous Ephialtes. 

Diodorus Siculus gives a somewhat different representation of the 
celebrated battle of Thermopylae. As soon, he says, as Leonidas 
found that he was circumvented, he availed himself of the approach of 
night to make a bold attempt upon the tent of Xerxes, which, however, 
the king had abandoned on the first alarm. The Greeks advanced in 
search of him from tent to tent, marking their track with the blood of 
multitudes whom they slew. In the morning, the Persians looked 
with contempt upon the insignificant number of their enemies, and 
closing upon them on three sides, still not daring to attack them in 
front, they slew them with their spears. In the poem before cited, 
Glover follows the narrative of Diodorus Siculus, but differs from the 
ancient historians, in representing the chief hero as perishing last — ad- 
hering less to historic accuracy, than to poetic effect : — 

■ The Spartan king 

Now stands alone. In heaps his slaughtered friends 

All stretch' d around him lie. The distant foes 

Shower on his head innumerable darts ; 

From various sluices gush the vital floods ; 

They stain his fainting limbs, nor yet with pain 

His brow is clouded ; but those beauteous wounds, 

The sacred pledges of his own renown 

And Sparta's safety, in serenest joy 

His closing eye contemplates. Fame can twine 

No brighter laurels round his glorious head ; 

His virtue more to labour fate forbids, 

And lays him now in honourable rest, 

To seal his country's liberty by death. 

Desirous of saving two of his relations who accompanied him to 
Thermopylae, Leonidas pretended to give them messages to the senate 
of Sparta. " I followed you," said one of them, " to fight, not as ;* 



256 



LEONIDAS. 



messenger." " What you enjoin," said the other, " is the business of a 
messenger ;" and immediately, taking up his shield, placed himself in 
his rank. 

The names of all the 300 Spartans, whose self-sacrifice is so cele- 
brated, were upon record in the time of Herodotus, and, as he ex- 
Dieneces. pressly asserts, well known to him. Dieneces is distinguished above 
the rest, as the bravest of the brave. Previous to the engagement, a 
Trachinian having remarked that the barbarians would send forth such 
a shower of arrows, that their multitude would obscure the sun itself ; 
he replied with the utmost heroism, " Our Trachinian friend promises 
us great advantages ; if the Medes obscure the sun's light, we shall fight 
them in the shade, and be protected from the heat." 
Alpheus, &c. Alpheus and Maron, two brothers, the sons of Orsiphantus, are 
next commemorated ; and, as most conspicuous among the Thespians, 
Dithyrambus, the son of Harmatidas. 
Aristodemus Two of the illustrious band of Spartans survived the destructive 
Pantites battle — Aristodemus and Pantites. The former had the general's per- 
mission to remain at Alpenus, on account of a violent inflammation of 
the eyes ; or, according to some writers, he was despatched from the 
army on some business, and might, it is said, have joined the battle, 
had he not lingered on his embassy. In consequence, he was branded 
with infamy on his return ; no one would speak to him, or supply him 
with fuel, and he acquired the odious epithet of " the trembler ;" but 
from this disgrace he redeemed his character subsequently, at the 
battle of Plataea. Pantites having been sent into Thessaly on some 
business, felt so strongly what he deemed the disgrace of being absent, 
that on his return to Sparta, he committed suicide. Another soldier, 
named Eurytus, is celebrated for having hastened to share in the glories, 
notwithstanding the permission he had to remain at Alpenus for the 
recovery of his health. 
Monuments The year after the extraordinary action of Thermopylae, the Amphic- 
to the slam. assembly undertook the care of erecting monuments to the slain. 

Two structures of marble were, in consequence reared, to denote the 
place of the conflict, with inscriptions which long remained. One was 
in honour of the Peloponnesians in general, without particularly men- 
tioning the Lacedaemonians, who defended the pass; the other related 
solely to the latter, and their heroic leader and king. They were in 
verse, according to the usual practice on such occasions. The former 
imports that " here four thousand men from Peloponnesus fought with 
three millions ;" the latter is as follows : — 

c ft \uv d.yy'i?.uv Aaxibaipoviois on <rnhi 
KiifAi6a, r<>7$ xuvuv pw/Autriv <ru0oft.ivat. — 

Go, stranger, and to listening Spartans tell, 
That here, obedient to their laws, we fell. 

Herodotus speaks of a lion of stone, which was erectedTin honour of 
Leonidas. His bones were, about forty years afterwards, at the time 



PAUSANIAS. 257 

of the victory of Platgea, 1 conveyed back to Sparta by Pausanias, who 
reared a magnificent monument to his memory, near the theatre. 
Every year, a funeral oration was pronounced in that place, to the 
honour of the fallen heroes, and games were celebrated, in which Spartans 
alone participated. 




PAUSANIAS. 

FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C 479. 

Pausanias was by birth a Lacedaemonian, and attained to the highest B. c. 479. 
honours which his country could bestow upon him, being appointed Pausanias. 
generalissimo of the confederate Greeks, at the critical period of the 
second Persian invasion. He was lineally descended from the kings of 
Sparta, the son of Cleombrotus, and regent of Lacedsemon for his 
cousin Pleistarchus, son of Leonidas, who was yet a minor, at the time 
his countrymen ordered him to oppose Mardonius the Persian com- 
mander. Previous to the departure of Pausanias from Sparta to oppose 
the Persian invasion, the Lacedaemonians appeared little inclined to 
afford an active co-operation with the Grecian states, in support of their 
common interests ; but the remonstrances of the Athenian ambassadors 
on the one hand, and the reproaches of their own allies on the 
other, at length brought them to resolve upon more decisive measures. 
Immediately after this fortunate change, the Lacedaemonian senate 
despatched Pausanias with five thousand Spartans, each attended by 
seven Helots, who were regarded as their light troops, to join the con- 
federacy. This increased the number of the forces to forty thousand 
men. Pausanias marched secretly out of Sparta under the cover of Marches 
night, and early on the ensuing morning arrived upon the confines of from s f art8 « 
Arcadia. This procedure both surprised and disconcerted the people 
of Argos, who, according to Herodotus, had undertaken to intercept 
any Lacedaemonian forces that might attempt to leave Laconia. The 
Argives were, however, so blindly devoted to the Persian interest, that 

1 If this was the same who commanded at the battle of Platsea. forty must be 
an erroneous reading for four. — Smith's Diet, of Antiq., " Leonidas." 
[H. G.] S 



258 



PAUSANIAS. 



b c. 479. they immediately despatched messengers to Mardonius, to communicate 
the intelligence of Pausanias having advanced into Arcadia. No sooner 
had the Persian general received this information, than he retreated 
with the utmost precipitation from Attica, and retired into Bceofcia, 
which, being an open country, was much better adapted to the evolu- 
tions of cavalry, and moreover had the advantage of being nearer to his 
numerous magazines at Thebes. He now fixed his camp upon the 
banks of the river Asopus. Pausanias, in the mean time, continued his 
march toward the isthmus of Corinth ; where, upon his arrival, he was 
joined by the rest of the confederate forces of Peloponnesus. Upon 
this expedition, he was attended by Tisamenus, a native of Elis, in the 
quality of prophet, or soothsayer, an office in high estimation. On 
consulting this soothsayer, after the performance of sacrifices, it was 
found that the omens were peculiarly favourable to the present enter- 
prise. 

Advances to Pausanias next advanced upon Eleusis, at which place he was joined 
Eleusis. -fay fae whole of the Athenian forces, under the command of Aristides, 
who had been appointed to that high and honourable office by a special 
decree of the people, and sacrifices being resorted to, the augurs again 
Position in returned favourable responses. The combined army of the Greeks now 
Boeotia. marched into Bosotia, and took up a position at the foot of Mount 
Cithseron, directly opposite to the Persian camp ; the river Asopus 
dividing the two hostile armies. The Persian general Mardonius, deeply 
sensible of the strength of the position which his opponent had assumed, 
attempted, but in vain, to seduce him from his ground, into the open 
country, where his cavalry would be enabled to act with advantage. 
Finding that the skilful Spartan could not be induced to relinquish his 
post, which, at the same time, it was impossible to force in front, he 
Contest with immediately ordered Masistius, the master of the horse, to employ his 
Masistms. ca v a lry in harassing the Greeks. The Persian cavalry like that of Par- 
thia, made use of a variety of missile weapons, such as darts and arrows ; 
and after having discharged them at the enemy, they were accustomed 
to retreat with the utmost precipitation. Their general plan was to 
charge in small bodies in succession ; and although they were extremely 
impetuous at the onset of the contest, as soon as they met with a firm 
resistance, they- suddenly wheeled about and made good their retreat. 
With light cavalry of this description, Masistius repeatedly charged 
the Megaraeans, who were posted in that part of the Grecian line which 
was most exposed to such assaults. The Megaraeans were so harassed 
by the repeated attacks of troops, continually supported by reinforce- 
ments, that although they maintained their station with unyielding 
heroism, they sent messengers to inform Pausanias of their being 
under the absolute necessity of abandoning their post, unless he 
marched quickly to their relief. This induced an immediate call of a 
council of his generals, for the purpose of consulting upon the best 
means of opposing an effectual resistance to the harassing and desultory 
charges of the Persian horse. In this consultation he frankly confessed 



PAUSANIAS. 



259 



his own inability to devise any plan, and expressed his reluctance to B. c. 479. 
give orders respecting a military service which was to him so perfectly 
novel. In this distressing and critical moment, Aristides and the Athe- 
nians offered their services ; nor could there be an instant hesitation in 
accepting the co-operation of an officer who had served at the battle of 
Marathon, under the illustrious Miltiades. Aristides selected Olympio- 
dorus, and placed under his command a chosen body of heavy-armed 
infantry, judiciously intermingled with a number of javelin-men and 
archers. Olympiodorus immediately marched to the relief of the Me - 
garaeans, and effectually checked the advance of the enemy. Masistius 
enraged at this unexpected interference on the part of the Athenians, 
impetuously charged their heavy-armed infantry : but at the very onset, 
an arrow wounded his horse, and he fell to the ground, when he was 
slain by the javelin of an Athenian soldier. The Persian horse made 
the most desperate efforts to recover the body of their general, who, 
was second in command to Mardonius, and was held in high estimation 
by the soldiery. The Greeks baffled their enemies in every attempt, 
which obliged the Persian cavalry to retire slowly and reluctantly to 
their camp. 

After the death of Masistius, the Greeks removed their camp from Greeks 
the present advantageous position, in consequence of experiencing a p og" t fo n their 
scarcity of water, which was occasioned by the numerous Persian horse 
scouring the banks of the river Asopus ; and they took up a post near 
the fountain of Gargaphia, which lies within the confines of the Pla- 
taean territory. 

No sooner was intelligence conveyed to Mardonius that the Greeks 
had changed their position, than he struck his own tents, put his 
troops into motion, and pitched his camp directly opposite to theirs, 
still keeping the Asopus in front of his army. The force under Mar- 
donius consisted of three hundred and fifty thousand men, of whom 
fifty thousand were Greeks, principally Macedonians, and a few Pho- 
cians. The Grecian army was, at this juncture, no less conspicuous for 
its valour and discipline, than respectable for its numbers. Their forces, 
according to Herodotus, amounted in the whole to no less than one 
hundred and ten thousand men. It would, however, appear from the 
silence of Herodotus on the subject, that they had no cavalry — a defi- 
ciency which was most probably remedied by their light-armed 
infantry, among whom was judiciously mingled a considerable number 
of archers and dart-men. 

After the Persian army had taken up its position, Mardonius kept inactivity of 
his troops in a state of almost perfect inaction for eight days, availing Mardonius. 
himself of this interval to get acquainted with the narrow passes of 
Mount Cithaeron, through which the Grecian army was constantly fur- 
nished with provisions and other necessaries. On one occasion having 
received intelligence of the march of a convoy with supplies for the 
Grecian camp, he despatched a strong body of cavalry to intercept 
them. The Persian horse falling in with the convoy at the point 

s 2 



260 



PAUSANIAS. 



B.C. 479. where the defile terminates in the plain, killed both men and cattle, 
and immediately retreated upon their own army. 

Wearied at length with a state of inactivity, and perceiving that 
the Greeks were pertinaciously resolved not to relinquish their present 
advantageous position by crossing the river Asopus, Mardonius deter- 
mined to givt battle ; and first taking the precaution of summoning 
the principal Grecian officers of his army, he stated his design of 
attacking the confederates on the succeeding day, commanding them 
at the same time to make the necessary preparations. Alexander, 
Alexander king of Macedonia, one of the Grecian officers unwillingly pressed into 
Irisfides. tne P ersian service, was determined to communicate this intention of 
Mardonius to his countrymen : and as Plutarch relates in his Life of 
Aristides, rode at midnight to the Athenian line, and demanding to 
speak with Aristides and his principal officers, communicated the 
plan of the Persian general. This being done, he hastily returned to 
his own camp ; while the Athenian general conveyed this gratifying 
piece of information to Pausanias, the commander in chief. A council 
of war was immediately called in his tent, to deliberate upon the pro- 
per measures which ought to be adopted in this emergency to resist 
Dispositions the menaced attack. Pausanias proposed an important alteration in 
o ausamas. ^ e or( j er f the Grecian line. He had previously observed that the 
native Persians were placed on the left of the enemy's army, opposite 
the Lacedaemonians, and the Grecian heavy-armed infantry in the 
Persian service on the right, opposite to the Athenian forces, and he 
alleged that the Athenians alone had any considerable experience in real 
action with the Persian troops, and that they were full of enthusiasm 
from cherishing a lively recollection of the glorious victory of Marathon. 
On these grounds, he proposed that the Spartans should move to the 
left wing, and the Athenians to the right : and with the concurrence 
of Aristides issued orders for the execution of this new arrangement. 
The Persians, however, the next day, deferred their intended attack, 
confining themselves to certain military evolutions ; excepting only 
that a few desultory charges of cavalry were made along the whole 
Grecian line, and one attack of a more serious nature upon the Lace- 
daemonian troops, stationed at the fountain of Gargaphia. 
Chang- of At the close of the ensuing day, the Greeks found themselves des- 
position. titute of water, and in some measure without provisions, owing to the 
activity of the enemy's cavalry in intercepting supplies. Upon this, 
Pausanias, for the third time, resolved to remove from his present 
situation, and gave orders to the troops to proceed during the second 
watch of the night, about the distance of a mile and a half lower 
down, from the Gargaphian fountain towards the town of Plataea. On 
this march, most of the Grecian troops were seized with a sudden 
and unaccountable panic. 

In this dilemma, it is probable that the fortunate obstinacy of a 
Lacedaemonian officer saved the whole confederate army from ruin, 
and unquestionably led to the celebrated victory which was afterwards 



PAUSANIAS. 



261 



achieved. Amompharetus, who united the characters of priest and b. c. 479. 
soldier, absolutely refused to obey the orders which were given by the Amomp h a . 
general to retreat, urging in vindication of his extraordinary conduct, retus. 
the standing laws of his country. This circumstance produced a 
violent altercation between Pausanias and the subaltern officer in 
question, which occasioned the detention of the Lacedaemonians in 
their position. However, at break of day, he desired the Athenians to 
observe the motions of his troops, as a guide by which to regulate 
their own movements, and commanded the Spartans and Tegseans to 
press forward to the ground which he had chosen for their encamp- 
ment. Amompharetus at length ordered his squadron to follow the 
rest of the army, whose march was in the direction of the hills, whilst 
the Athenians only advanced along the plain. In the morning the 
Persians perceived the Greeks in rapid motion. The cavalry imme- Lacedaemo- 
diately charged the rear of the Lacedaemonian army, andMardonius, con- ^ t a a "| ed 
struing the retreat of the Greeks into a flight, quickly brought up the 
Persian infantry to pursue the fugitives, as well as to support his own 
cavalry. The whole of the enemy's force followed in expectation of 
an easy and bloodless victory. At this juncture, the Grecian general 
found his rear so seriously annoyed by the reiterated and desultory 
attacks of the Persian light horse, that he was under the necessity of 
making a stand ; and, accordingly, despatched a messenger to AristTdes, 
acquainting him with his intention, and requesting him to afford him 
some assistance in repelling the assaults of the enemy. But before the 
Athenian general could march to the relief of his colleague, he was 
himself vigorously attacked by the Grecian troops in the Persian 
service, and thus was effectually prevented from co-operating with the 
Spartans. The Lacedaemonians and Tegseans amounted, however, to 
eleven thousand heavy-armed foot, and more than forty thousand 
light-armed troops ; and they were posted upon the declivity of 
Mount Cithaeron, with the river Asopus in front, running at the foot 
of the hill. In this position, so advantageous for defence, Pausanias, 
with his Spartans, awaited the approach of the enemy. The Persian Attack of the 
infantry, under Mardonius, made a most spirited attack upon the jJjgjjJL, 
Grecian line. The conflict was long and dubious ; but in this, as in 
the former engagements, the Greeks had the advantage in close fight, 
from the short weapons and undefended bodies of their antagonists. 
These, nevertheless, made several vigorous charges upon the Grecian 
infantry, many of whom were seized and their weapons broken, but 
every effort they could make to penetrate the Lacedaemonian phalanx, 
proved totally unavailing, and the Persians began at length to give 
way. At this critical moment, according to Herodotus, the Spartans 
and Tegseans advanced upon them, and having made an impression on 
their line, pushed forward, and soon threw the whole mass of the 
Persian infantry into confusion. Nothing could exceed the astonish- 
ment into which the Persian general was thrown, on witnessing the 
unexpected repulse of his infantry by an enemy whom he had regarded as 



262 



PATTSANIAS. 



Dilemma of 
Mardonius. 



His fall. 



Retreat 
effected by 
Artabazus. 



b. c. 479. fugitive, and finding the victory suddenly snatched from his eager and 
too confident grasp. 

He was now in great suspense whether or not to sound a retreat ; 
but convinced that it- was necessary to strike a decisive blow, he deter- 
mined to trust to one of those accidents which have so often interposed 
at an alarming crisis to turn the fate of battle. He therefore placed him- 
self at the head of a select body of horse, and advanced full speed to the 
support of his retreating infantry, and made a charge in person no less 
judicious than spirited. Although he did not succeed in breaking the 
Lacedaemonian phalanx, he was enabled by this vigorous attack to 
check its progress. Many gallant Persian officers and soldiers perished 
in this charge of cavalry ; among the rest Mardonius himself, after 
having behaved in a manner worthy of the magnitude and importance 
of the interests which were at stake. He fell covered with wounds : 
and instantly upon his death the whole Persian army betook them- 
selves to flight. Artabazus, who was second in command to Mardonius, 
but who was not personally engaged in the battle, no sooner heard of 
the complete overthrow of the infantry, than, with a chosen body of 
forty thousand men, he retreated toward Phocis, and by this well-con- 
ducted measure saved the remains of the Persian army. 

While the Lacedaemonians were victorious over the Persians upon 
the hills, the Athenians were severely engaged with the Thebans in 
the plain. The Boeotians, who were in the Persian service, were forced, 
after an obstinate conflict, to yield to the valour of the Athenian 
troops, and fled in confusion towards Thebes. The rest of the Asiatic 
nations, upon the advance of the Spartans and Tegseans, disappeared 
in the utmost consternation, without waiting for the charge. The 
Persian and Theban horse, however, still maintained the field after the 
infantry were routed, and rendered material aid in covering the retreat 
of the fugitives. The greater part of the Persian infantry took shelter 
in their fortified camp, the depository of all their magazines and 
treasures. The Lacedaemonians and Tegaeans, acquainted with this 
circumstance, pursued them with ardour to the very entrenchments,; 
but not being accustomed to storm fortified walls, were perplexed in 
what manner to conduct their operations. On the arrival, however, of 
the Athenian troops, the Spartans, under the direction of the Athenian 
officers, again attacked the entrenched position, and after repeated 
assaults, completely succeeded in carrying it, with a horrible slaughter 
of the enemy. 

Of the Persian army, which originally consisted of about three hun- 
dred thousand men, only three thousand survived, with the exception 
of those who effected a timely retreat under the skilful conduct of 
Artabazus. He arrived in safety with his forces at Byzantium, and 
thence proceeded to Asia. In the course of a few days, not a single 
Persian was to be found in Greece ; and never since that memorable 
period, did a Persian armament venture to make its appearance on 
that side of the Hellespont. 



PAUSANIAS. 



263 



The spoil found by the Greeks was immense. In the magnificent B. c. 479. 
tent of Mardonius, there were discovered prodigious sums of money, Persian camp 
gold and silver cups, vessels, couches, tables, necklaces, collars, and P lundered ' 
bracelets. This Asiatic display of pomp and wealth dazzled the eyes 
of the wondering Greeks ; but these spoils became fatal to Greece, 
inasmuch as they first introduced a love of riches and luxury amongst 
her inhabitants. 

The Tegaeans, who first broke into the camp, seized upon its 
treasures, and began to appropriate them to themselves, as their right. 
Upon this, Pausanias immediately issued orders, that the whole of Distribution 
the plunder should be fairly distributed, and that the principal officers of thes P 0lls - 
of the army, who had distinguished themselves in the field of battle, 
should be proportionally remunerated. The Helots were then ordered 
to gather together all the spoils, with the exception of a brazen 
manger, which was conceded to the Tegseans as a testimony of their 
bravery and good fortune. Previously, however, to the division of the 
spoil among the gallant soldiery who had fought for it, a tenth part of 
the whole was appropriated to the use of the gods. The treasure thus 
set apart furnished a golden tripod, which was dedicated to Apollo, at 
Delphi, and placed there by the express orders of Pausanias. It bore 
an inscription, purporting, " that he (Pausanias) had defeated the 
barbarians at Plata?a ; and that, in acknowledgment of that victory, 
he had made this present to Apollo." The Spartans, in order 
to punish the arrogance of their general, and to perform an act 
of justice to their confederates, caused his name to be erased, and the 
names of the respective cities to be inserted in its place. Pausanias, 
however, upon another occasion, gave a more favourable specimen of 
the true Spartan disposition, in a conduct worthy of the best days 
of Spartan integrity and simplicity. The trappings of the royal house- 
hold were found in the pavilion of Mardonius, which had been left by 
Xerxes, on his sudden and hasty departure for Persia. These had been 
presented by him to his general and brother-in-law. Pausanias, a few 
days after the engagement, determined to give a sumptuous entertain- Entertain- 
ment to the principal officers, whom he invited for the occasion. The bv 
domestic Persian slaves, who had survived the slaughter, were in Pausanias. 
waiting ; the royal furniture of Xerxes was put in request ; the side- 
boards were covered with a costly exhibition of gold and silver 
utensils ; and one of the tables exhibited a profusion of the delicacies 
and luxuries which used to be served up at the table of Mardonius. 
Pausanias ordered another table to be spread, on which was placed 
his plain and frugal supper, prepared according to the Spartan 
manner ; and turning round to his officers, requested them to mark 
the difference between a sumptuous Persian entertainment, and a 
Spartan repast. " What madness," says he, " was it in Mardonius, 
who was accustomed to such a luxurious diet, to come and attack a 
people like us, that know how to live without any such superfluities!" 
After the distribution of the spoil, Pausanias ordered that the 



264 



PAUSANIAS. 



Burial of 
the dead. 



Decree of 
the general 
assembly. 



b. c. 479. burial of the dead should be performed. The slain were interred, 
according to the general practice of the ancients, in tumuli, or 
barrows. A single burying-place was appointed to the use of the 
Athenians, Tegseans, Megaraeans, and Phliasians ; but the slain of the 
Lacedaemonians formed three separate mounds ; one consisting of those 
who had borne the priestly office, another of the Lacedaemonians 
in general, and the third of their Helots. 

In the next general assembly of the Greeks, which was held soon 
after the battle, Aristides proposed the following decree : that all the 
cities of Greece should annually send their respective deputies to 
Platsea to offer up sacrifices to "Zeus the Deliverer" and to the 
tutelary deities of the city ; that games should be celebrated there 
every five years, which should be called the games of liberty ; and that 
the inhabitants of Platsea, who had distinguished themselves in so 
extraordinary a manner, and received, for their services, the first 
honours of military merit, should be solely devoted to the service of 
the gods, considered as sacred and inviolable, and be employed in no 
other office than that of offering up prayer and sacrifice for the safety 
and prosperity of Greece. After this decree had passed into a law, 
the inhabitants of Platsea voluntarily engaged to solemnise an anniver- 
sary festival, in honour of those heroes who were slain in the plains of 
Platsea. 

A few days after the battle, Pausanias called a council of war, 
in which it was determined to chastise those Greeks who had been in 
the Persian service ; and with a view of carrying this resolution into 
effect, the army of the confederates, under Pausanias, ten days after 
the engagement at Platsea, marched into the Theban territories. The 
Lacedaemonian general, on his appearance before the gates of Thebes, 
insisted upon the surrender of Timegenidas, Attaginus, and some 
other principal Thebans. Attaginus effected his escape, but Time- 
genidas, and other Theban traitors, being surrendered to Pausanias, 
were conveyed to Corinth, where they were publicly executed. This was 
the last act of the Grecian commander, in his office of generalissimo. 



Pausanias 
marches 
against 
Thebes. 



B. C. 470. 



Pausanias 
commands 
a fleet. 



Takes 
Byzantium. 



About nine years after the battle of Platsea (b. c. 470), the Greeks, 
perceiving the necessity of still further checking the Persian power, 
and of delivering their allies from the Asiatic yoke, determined to send 
a considerable fleet to sea, of which Pausanias was unanimously 
appointed commander in chief, receiving as coadjutors, Aristides, and 
Cimon, the son of the illustrious Miltiades. Pausanias first directed 
his course towards the island of Cyprus : here he compelled the 
Persian garrisons to surrender, and restored all the cities to their 
former liberty. The fleet then steered to the Propontis and the Hel- 
lespont, attacking the city of Byzantium, which was the principal 
military depot of the Persians, and the key of communication with 
their possessions in Europe. After a siege of some continuance, the 
garrison and town capitulated, and an immense number of prisoners 



PAUSANIAS. 



265 



was taken, many of whom were of the richest and most consider- B. c. 470. 
able families of Persia ; some of them were related to the family of 
Xerxes. 

From the period of the capture of Byzantium, the mind of the Changes his 
commander in chief seems to have undergone a remarkable change, character. 
The austere mode of living, practised by the Spartans, disgusted him, 
when viewed in comparison with the pomp and luxury of Asia ; and 
the splendour of his renown, acquired at Plataea, so dazzled him, that 
he began to consider the rigid subjection required by the Spartan laws, 
as altogether intolerable to a man who had so eminently distinguished 
himself in the field of battle. 

He entirely laid aside the Spartan customs, imitating the Asiatics 
in all their luxury and magnificence, and invidiously assuming both 
the dress and haughtiness of the Persians. He never spoke to the 
officers of the allies, but with insufferable haughtiness ; and by his 
whole conduct, rendered the Spartan dominion over the rest of the 
confederate Greeks odious and insupportable. On the other hand, 
unhappily for the Lacedaemonian interest in the affairs of Greece, the Contrasted 
character of Pausanias, when contrasted with the opposite dispositions JjJ Cimon 
of Aristides and Cimon, increased the general discontent of the allies. Aristides. 
Their courteous and affable deportment, their remoteness from all 
imperious and haughty airs, and their gentle, kind, and beneficent 
dispositions, in conjunction with the humanity which they displayed 
on all public occasions, were admirably calculated to conciliate the 
affections of the Grecian states. 

About this time, Pausanias became acquainted with Gongylus, Gongyius. 
a renegade Greek, whom he appointed governor of Byzantium, 
entrusting to his charge the Persian prisoners of distinction. Soon 
afterwards, Pausanias spread a report throughout the Grecian army, 
that the Persian nobles committed to the governor's care had effected 
their escape by night ; whereas, in fact, they were all liberated by the Treachery of 
connivance of the commander in chief himself. Gongylus, the Pausamas - 
governor, was then despatched to the court of Persia : and Pausanias 
sent a letter by him to Xerxes, containing proposals to betray his 
country on certain stipulated conditions. He promised the Persian 
monarch to deliver into his power the city of Sparta, and the whole 
of Greece, on condition of his giving him his daughter in marriage, 
accompanied with a magnificent fortune. Through the medium of 
Gongylus, Xerxes returned a favourable answer to these proposals, 
and, at the same time, sent him large sums of money, for the purpose 
of winning over to his interest as many of the leading men of Greece 
as he should find disposed to enter into his designs. The Persian king 
also appointed Artabazus to continue this negotiation ; and to enable 
him to do so with the greater success, he recalled Megabates, and ap- 
pointed Artabazus governor of all the cities situated on the sea-coasts 
of Asia-Minor. From this moment, the manners, dress, and table of 
Pausanias became entirely Persian ; a style of living which naturally 



266 



PAUSANIAS. 



b. c. 470. 



Tried and 
acquitted. 



Retires to 
Bvzantiurr 



Ordered to 
Sparta. 



His guilt 
established 
by a slave. 



His death. 

b. c. 469. 



caused the greatest dissatisfaction among the confederates. At last, 
the general discontent publicly broke forth ; all the allied forces 
unanimously agreed to desert him, and to place themselves under the 
command of the Athenians : and thus the Lacedaemonians not only 
lost that distinguished superiority which they had hitherto maintained 
over the confederate states of Greece, but conferred, though uninten- 
tially, upon their rivals, the Athenians, the conduct of Grecian affairs. 

The republic of Lacedaemon, recalling their troops, summoned their 
general before a military tribunal, to give an account of his extra- 
ordinary conduct. Pausanias was brought to trial, but from want 
of sufficient evidence was acquitted. After this public investigation, 
he went in the character of a private individual, without the approba- 
bation of the commonwealth, to the city of Byzantium, from which 
place he was able to carry on his intrigues with Artabazus with the 
greater facility. During his residence in that city, his behaviour 
became so offensive to the Athenians, that they compelled him to retire 
to Colonnae, a small town of the Troad. Here he received an order 
from the Ephori, to repair again to Sparta and defend his conduct. 
He obeyed the summons, presuming that he should escape punishment 
by corrupting the principal men of Sparta with bribes. The event 
fully justified his expectations ; for he was brought to trial a second 
time, and again acquitted, and set at liberty. But the guilt of Pau- 
sanias soon became evident, and too dangerous to the state to be 
passed over with impunity. One of his own slaves went to the 
Ephori, and produced before them a letter written by his master to 
the king of Persia, which he was to have carried and delivered into the 
hands of Artabazus himself. The slave withdrew to the temple of 
Poseidon, at Taenaras, in order to secure himself from the vengeance of 
Pausanias. Two small closets had been purposely made there, in one 
of which the Ephori secreted themselves. Pausanias, upon hearing 
that his slave had fled to this temple, hastened to the place to inquire 
the reason, and the Spartan magistrates had the fullest opportunity of 
satisfying themselves with regard to his traitorous intentions. The 
slave confessed that he had opened the letter, and finding by its 
contents that he was to be put to death, he had fled to that temple as 
an asylum. Pausanias, aware of the truth of this statement, did not 
deny the fact, but promised him a great reward, and besought him 
never to reveal the present conversation. 

The Ephori determined to seize upon him as soon as he returned to 
the city ; but having received an intimation of their design from one of 
his friends, he hastily fled to the temple of Pallas, called Chalciaecus. 
The entrance was immediately blocked up with stones by his pursuers, 
and according to Cornelius Nepos, his mother was the person who 
brought the first stone. The Ephori caused the roof of the temple to be 
taken off, and not wishing by a forcible abduction to violate the sanctity 
of the asylum, left him exposed to the inclemency of the weather and 
the pangs of hunger: he was accordingly starved to death. But 



PAUSANIAS. 



267 



a little before he expired they drew him out of the asylum, when he B. c. 460. 
died in the arms of his attendants, B. c. 469. His body was buried 
in front of the temple, and two brazen statues, according to the 
response of the Delphic oracle, were erected in honour of his memory. 
Some years after his decease, festivals and solemn games were insti- 
tuted in his honour, and a funeral oration was spoken in his praise, 
in which were celebrated his exploits at the battle of Platsea, and the 
defeat of Mardonius. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE SUPREMACY OF ATHENS. 
b. c. 469 to b. c. 429. 



CIMON. 

BOEN B. C. 500, DIED B. C. 449. 

Cimon. The virtues of Cimon, the son of Miltiades, the Marathonian conqueror, 
b. c. 500. brought him into notice at an earlier period of life than any other of 
the Athenian chiefs of this period. In his youth he was addicted to 
intemperate and riotous pleasure : but the distresses of his father struck 
home upon the heart of the son, and awakened that energy of spirit for 
which he was afterwards so eminent amongst his countrymen. On the 
second Persian invasion, while yet the principal citizens of Athens 
remained unmoved by the arguments of Themistocles, who urged them 
His first to repair to their fleet for the preservation of their liberty, Cimon, then 
public act. a ver y y 0UD g m an, convinced of the wisdom of the measure, repaired 
B. c. 480. to temple, and offered a bridle on the altar of Athene, to profess 
his belief that horses and horsemen were no longer of service in her 



CIMON. 



269 



cause. He then proceeded to remove the portable goods of his family b. c. 480. 
on board the fleet, and induced many of the Athenians to follow his 
example. The spirited patriotism of so young a man pleased Aristides, 
who henceforth took the son of Miltiades under his tuition and pro- 
tection. 

As this noble youth had been bred up in the army, under the expe- Takes part 
rienced eve of his father, he was possessed of considerable military skill, ^ctory of 
and in the Athenian fleet, which achieved the victory of Salamis, he Saiamis, 
sustained a considerable command. We next find his name associated 
with that of his distinguished friend Aristides in the direction of that 
important expedition of the confederated Greeks against the Persians, 
in which the Lacedaemonians lost their ascendancy among the allied 
forces, which the Athenians obtained. Although Aristides, as the com- 
mander in chief of the Athenian force, was the person to whom the 
irritated Greeks first officially addressed themselves, it is clear that they 
considered Cimon as of no little consequence in the furtherance of their 
object, and Aristides himself was content to share the honour with so 
noble an assistant in arms. Returning home in triumph to Athens, the 
intrigues of Themistocles against his rival Aristides disturbed the peace An 
of the city, and ended in his own banishment. In this affair the whole ^ThemS 
influence of Cimon was exerted in the cause of his friend, believing it to tocies. 
be that of his country ; and he most steadily required that the whole 
force of the law should be exerted against the selfish policy of Themis- 
tocles, whose treachery to Athens he considered to be clearly proved. 

On the decision of this case, Athens was left comparatively in peace. Gradually 
She had attained a rank amongst the confederate states, to which she ^prame 
was doubtless entitled by the superior talents of the chieftains she had power, 
sent to the common war, by the magnitude of the force she had risked, 
and by the greater severity of her sufferings. It now became the chief 
duty of her chiefs to support her liberties aud her supremacy from en- 
croachment at home, no less than to defend her territories from outrage 
or insult abroad. Themistocles was an outlaw, and Aristides chose 
rather to promote the increasing power of Cimon, than, by again 
wielding it himself, to risk the well-earned honours he had acquired. 
Thus everything seemed to prepare the path of Cimon to the highest 
distinction ; and, soon after the banishment of Themistocles, we find 
him in a most important command. At this time the Athenians judged 
it prudent to fit out an expedition for the relief of those Grecian colo- 
nies in Asia which were still under the dominion of their great enemy 
the Persian king. Such was the ostensible object of their hostile pre- 
parations ; but it has been justly thought that the real motive was, thar 
they might, under cover of this expedition, still keep on foot a powerful 
navy, and obtain the immense riches which they were well aware the 
skill of their officers and the bravery of their troops would win from 
those countries upon which they had their eye. Without, therefore, 
being suspected of any other views than those publicly avowed, the 
Athenians were, by these means, sustaining their internal power and 



270 



CIMON. 



b. c. 480. 



Commands 
the fleet. 

Takes 
Scyros. 

b. c. 476. 



Victory 
over the 
Persians off 
Pamphylia. 



b. c. 470. 



Its flattering 
results. 



LoriL r walls 
commenced. 



First portico 
built. 



annoying the common enemy to the partial advantage of all Greece, 
although they reaped in their own state the immediate and most 
important benefits. As none of the Athenian commanders were now 
more eminent than Cimon, to him was given the supreme direction of 
the fleet ; the first uncontrolled military power he ever possessed. He 
now sailed to Eion, a town of much commercial importance, in the 
mouth of the river Strymon, where he defeated a considerable body 
of Thracians. He then reduced the island of Scyros in the iEgean sea, 
whence he is said to have brought the bones of Theseus, the founder of 
the Athenian monarchy. On his return to Athens, he caused them to 
be interred with considerable magnificence, attended by all the public 
authorities. With a fleet of three hundred ships, he next sailed direct 
for Caria, conquering wherever he came, and obtaining immense riches. 
Off the Pamphylian coast, lay a considerable Persian fleet, and an army 
on the adjacent shore, designed to act on the defensive, at this time 
waiting the reinforcement of eighty Phoenician galleys. Cimon imme- 
diately determined to attack the enemy. Upon his appearance, the 
Persians at first boldly advanced to meet him; but the renown of 
the Athenian general, and the remembrance of their own repeated 
defeats, struck a sudden panic into the Persian crews. They hastily 
retreated towards the shore, abandoned their ships, and sought protection 
amongst the army. Cimon, after taking possession of the vessels, now 
landed and attacked the Persians on shore. An obstinate contest 
ensued ; but victory at length declared in favour of the Greeks ; while, 
to crown the good fortune of the Athenians, Cimon captured the eighty 
Phoenician vessels in a port of Cyprus, and conducted back to his 
country two hundred ships laden with the spoil of his numerous vic- 
tories. 

Immensely enriched by this booty, the Athenians now undertook 
several works of public importance, which stood for ages the monu- 
ments of Cimon's valour ; while his own share of the spoil enabled this 
noble chieftain to give the reins to his unrivalled generosity and mag- 
nificence. With the general unappropriated spoil of the enemy, the 
south wall of the city was built, and ample foundations laid for the 
walls which afterwards united the port to the city. The ground being 
marshy, immense stones and fragments of rocks required to be sunk to a 
considerable depth ; and had not the public treasury been so unusually 
supplied, every idea of completing them must have been relinquished. 
Cimon, from his own individual share of the spoil, beautified that part 
of the citadel which looked towards the south ; he adorned the forum 
with plantations of palm-trees; and surrounded the schools with 
various pleasant and sumptuous parades and plantations. To him also 
was Athens indebted for the first of those buildings known by the 
name of " porticoes," which afterwards contributed so greatly to the 
ornament of the city. Several of them were constructed, under his direc- 
tion, in the highest style of architecture, in which he demonstrated the 
elegance of his taste, no less than the generosity of his disposition. 



CIMON. 



271 



In private life this illustrious Athenian is said also to have been dis- B. c. 470. 
tinguished for his liberality. He dismissed the keepers, threw down Riches and 
the walls, and levelled the inclosures of his park and gardens, per- Xcimon" 06 
mitting every citizen of Athens indiscriminately to partake of their 
productions. His noble table was open even to the poorest classes ; 
for it was a constant custom with Cimon to invite all those citizens to 
his supper whom he saw at the forum unbidden to any other. In his 
walks through the city he is said to have been attended by young men 
bearing purses of money for the relief of the indigent ; while he was 
sometimes even known to give way, on the spot, his own mantle to 
particular objects of charity. 

By these means Cimon attained the summit of power in Athens. Cimon at the 
His last expedition had brought such a mass of wealth into the city, hispower. 
that all the corruptions of luxury followed, and he himself, of all the 
Athenians, appeared the only exception to their influence. ' With 
luxury, however, came power, which the people now felt so conscious 
of possessing, that they suffered no indignity from other states to pass 
unatoned for or unavenged. No sooner, therefore, was it known at 
Athens that the Persians had again invaded the Chersonesus, than 
Cimon was immediately sent thither to expel them. This expedition 
he undertook with only four ships, over which the Persians anticipated 
an easy triumph. But the Athenian leader attacked the enemy sud- 
denly, took thirteen of their ships in a few hours, with a trifling loss, 
and proceeded to the reduction of the Chersonesus. Another contest 
and another triumph now presented themselves to his arms. The 
people of Thasos, a small but fertile island in the iEgean sea, had 
revolted from the dominion of the Athenians, and, in the heat of the 
Persian war, had seized on the gold mines which lay between the rivers 
Strymon and Nyssus, on the boundaries of Macedonia and Thrace. 
In preparing for a war against these people, Cimon availed himself of Plans for 
an expedient, which had already, with little expense, increased consider- ^Lmfntof 
ably the power and influence of Athens. According to the system his country, 
of alliance perfected by Aristides, the different naval contingents of 
each separate state of the confederacy were distinctly mentioned. Now, 
however, that the Greeks felt themselves free from immediate danger, 
many states were found to offer a sum of money to the Athenians, 
whom they solicited to furnish the necessary quota in their stead. 
Cimon, dispensing with the personal services of those confederates who 
were willing to pay for substitutes to the war, enlisted them from 
amongst his own citizens, inuring them to warfare, while the fleet of 
Athens was made superior to that of any other power in the world. 
The Athenians now appeared before Thasos, and Cimon not only pos- Expedition 
sessed himself of the gold mines which the Thasians had seized, but £ T ^q 5 
planted a large colony of Athenians in the conquered country, and 
built a city there which he called Amphipolis, diffusing the fame of 
the Athenians even to the borders of Macedon itself. He finally 



272 



CIMON. 



b. c. 465. retired from this war laden with considerable spoils, and was hailed by 
Athens as the most fortunate of her chiefs. 

Shortly after his return to Athens, an opportunity occurred to Cimon 
which enabled him to show at once his generosity to a rival power, and 
to demonstrate publicly his own principles of government. The Helots, 
or slaves of the Spartans, had rebelled against their lordly masters, and 
raised a tumult in the state dangerous to its very existence. In this 
distress the Lacedaemonians applied to Athens for assistance in reducing 
the revolters to obedience — a request which occasioned great disputes in 
the city. The popular party, through their favourite orator Ephialtes, 
utterly opposed the grant of assistance. They urged that Sparta had 
always been, from the aristocratic nature of her principles and consti- 
tution, the rival and enemy of Athens ; and that the pride and cruelty 
of her people had driven their slaves into a rebellion which it was not 
b. c. 464. the interest of a free nation to assist in quelling. On the other side, 
Cimon, excited by gratitude to the Spartans, who had given him so 
decided a support in his contention with Themistocles, earnestly pressed 
upon his countrymen to succour their confederates, designating Sparta 
as " the other eye of the noble Grecian head." He extolled the mag- 
nanimity of the action, and so frilly convinced the Athenians of the 
propriety of the course he recommended, that they sent the orator 
sent to himself, at the head of a powerful army, to yield the Spartans the 
Spartans! required succour. This service Cimon performed with his accus- 
tomed success, and returned from the expedition with the applauses 
of all Greece. A circumstance happened, not long afterwards, which 
aggravated the dormant spirit of rivalry between Sparta and Athens, 
and in which Cimon himself did not escape without a considerable 
share of blame. The Lacedaemonians had engaged in the siege of 
Ithome, which holding out with unexpected obstinacy, they again 
solicited assistance from the Athenians, and were successful in their 
request. Cimon and a numerous body of troops were once more 
marched off to their assistance. In the mean time, however, and be- 
fore the Athenian army arrived at the scene of action, the other con- 
federates of Sparta had joined the troops before the town, and the 
siege was soon brought to a successful termination. The Lacedaemo- 
nians, ever proud, and particularly jealous of Athens since her late 
attainment of ascendancy, dismissed the general and his army without 
any tokens of respect or gratitude ; an affront which struck deep into 
the minds of the Athenians, and contributed in no small degree to that 
inveterate hatred which afterwards arose between the two countries, 
intrigues The Athenians now carried on war with two different nations. The 
against nm. conteg {. iEgma was renewed ; and the war with Persia continued 
with unabated rancour in Egypt, which had revolted from the Persian 
yoke : their domestic disputes, however, ran as high as ever. Cimon, 
succeeding to the honours of Aristides, was the leader of the aristocracy 
of Athens, whilst Pericles and Ephialtes, both men of powerful talents, 



\ 



cimosT 273 

were at the head of the democratic party. A specious charge was B. c. 464. 
now devised against Cimon, and he was accused of having received 
presents from the Macedonians, in consequence of which he had 
declined to push his success as far as he might otherwise have done, after 
his obtaining possession of the gold mines of Thasos. The defence of 
Cimon was noble and simple. He alleged that he had at all times 
prosecuted the war in Thrace to the utmost of his power ; but frankly 
acknowledged that he had not made inroads into Macedonia, which he 
could not consider as the enemy of Athens, merely because she was 
the neutral ally of Persia, unless he had acted as the public enemy of 
mankind. He avowed, too, that he regarded the Macedonians, as a 
people, with considerable respect ; they were civilized and modest in 
their manners, rigidly just in their dealings, and strictly honourable in 
all their past transactions with the Athenians. " If," concluded our 
noble-minded orator, " the Athenian people regard this conduct as 
criminal, I am ready to submit to the punishment they choose to 
inflict ; but their judgment can never alter my conviction of right and 
wrong." On the occasion of this trial, Elpinice, the generous sister of 
the accused, warmly engaged ; and condescended to solicit, amongst 
other of the leading citizens, even Pericles himself on his behalf. But 
every effort was unavailing with an Athenian populace. The open 
and candid mind of Cimon had prompted him to avow, on various 
occasions, his partiality for the aristocratic principles of Sparta and her 
Peloponnesian dependencies ; he had even named his eldest son Lace- 
daemonius, and his two others, Thessalus and Eleius. These circum- 
stances arguing some indiscretion, perhaps, and certainly no illiberal 
patriotism, continued to increase the clamour against him, and he was 
sentenced to be banished for the usual term of ten years. Cimon His 
retired to a lordship which he possessed in the Chersonesus, where he b ai « shmeilt - 
lived perfectly free of access, but keeping up an armed and vigilant 
household. 

The exile of Cimon was the signal long expected by Ephialtes and b. c. 460. 
the democracy to begin their meditated attack upon the high court of 
Areopagus, which they considerably limited in its jurisdiction and 
privileges ; and many of the causes of which it had hitherto taken cog- 
nizance were transferred to the general assembly of the citizens. The 
smothered jealousy between Athens and Sparta once more broke out 
into an open flame, which was rapidly communicated to all the sur- 
rounding states. When the troops of the rival nations had assembled Sudden re- 
before Tanagra, a town of Boeotia, and had disposed themselves in Jf^JJgJ® 
order of battle, Cimon, the banished patriot, unexpectedly appeared E< c> 457". 
amongst his friends, completely armed, and ready again to risk his life 
in the service of his country. Murmurs of discontent immediately 
arose ; his enemies declared that his term of banishment not being 
fulfilled, it was unlawful for him to mingle with the defenders of his 
country ; they accused him of a design to join the Lacedaemonians, and 
asserted that he came to the field with no other purpose. Aware of 
[h. g.] t 



274 



b. c. 457. 



Cimon 
returns to 
Athens. 

b. c. 455. 



Five years' 
truce. 

B. C. 450. 



Lon<? walls 
at Athens 
completed. 



Cimon 's last 
expedition 
to Cyprus. 

b. c. 449. 



the tumult likely to arise from factious opposition, Cimon removed the 
cause of the quarrel by voluntarily retiring, after having exhorted his 
immediate dependents to behave with their utmost valour in the ap- 
proaching battle. Euthippus, one of his warmest friends, only requested 
him to confide to them his armour, to be borne before them in the field ; 
and this little band of Cimon's friends, commanded by the valiant 
Euthippus, performed prodigies of valour throughout the day. They 
bore the armour of their leader safe, as long as they themselves possessed 
life, and when they fell, the sacred trust of friendship was surrounded 
with their lifeless bodies. 

After this disastrous action, the war between Athens and Sparta 
became general, and of very fluctuating success. The democratic 
leaders, by whose artifices Cimon had been banished, began to be 
distrustful of their own talents for subduing the storm which they 
had raised ; the common people, too, were not without remembrance 
of his munificence, and of his gift of honour at Tanagra. Pericles 
himself moved for the recall of Cimon from banishment, when only five 
years of his prescribed term of exile had elapsed : he was invited to his 
country by an honourable deputation, and to the immediate direction 
of its councils. 

One of the first duties to which this great man addressed himself 
was the establishment of peace. Negotiations were directly opened 
between the Spartan and Athenian chiefs ; and, at length, a truce of 
five years was formally concluded between the contending nations. 
From this time to the death of Cimon, the Athenian affairs may be said 
to be under his direction and that of his rival Pericles conjointly, and 
the wisdom of the measures pursued proved the union to be most 
auspicious for Athens. A third wall was added to the fortifications 
which joined Athens to its ports, and an important addition to the 
military strength of his country was accomplished also at this time, in 
the reorganization of the Athenian cavalry. 

In the midst of these exertions for his country's good, Cimon was 
destined to feel daily the obstruction which arose to his plans from the 
restless spirits of Athens being, for the greater part, unemployed. He had 
succeeded in his project for planting a large colony of the Athenians on 
his own Chersonesian territories, and that measure had at once relieved 
the city from its excessive population in some degree ; but the increase 
of the idle and dissolute was yet alarming, and the dominion which 
Persia still exercised over many of the Grecian cities, pointed out to 
Cimon the only legitimate object on which to employ them. With 
these motives he raised and manned a fleet of two hundred galleys, 
assumed the supreme command himself, and despatched sixty of them, 
under Amyrtseus, chief of the ^Egyptians of the marshes, to enable that 
officer to maintain his independence against the Persian power. With 
the remaining part of this force he sailed to Cyprus, and laid siege to 
the city of Citium in that island, defeating on his way, near Salamis, a 
Persian squadron of Phoenician and Cilician ships that had the temerity 



PERICLES. 



275 



to attack him. The life of Cimon was destined to close before the B. c. 449. 
walls of Citium, but in death he forgot not the welfare of his county. of 
Conscious of his approaching end, and aware that a scarcity of pro- 
visions in his camp was likely to produce disorder, he issued a number 
of preparatory orders to mitigate the calamity, as well as to facilitate 
the safe re-embarkation of the troops. That these directions might be 
better obeyed, he gave positive injunctions that his death should be 
concealed awhile from the soldiers, and that everything should proceed, 
as usual, in his name as their general. In pursuance of these in- 
structions, the Athenian army moved towards the sea. On their 
march, when attacked by the Persians, they totally routed them, and 
here missing him personally, they still ascribed the victory to the ex- 
cellency of the plans of Cimon and the greatness of his renown. 

His triumphant, but mournful army carried his remains to Athens, 
where a sumptuous monument was decreed to their honour, and long 
known and venerated by the almost sacred name of " Cimoneia." 





PERICLES. 

BORN B. C. 499, DIED B. C. 429. 

The life of this celebrated chieftain is connected with no small b. o. 499. 
portion of the history of the Athenian state. By the splendour of his Pericles. 
talents he raised himself to an eminence in Athens never surpassed, 
and at length became almost its absolute master. 

Pericles was the son of Xanthippus (the famous Athenian, who had 
been named with Aristides to consult with Themistocles on his secret 
projects,) by his wife Agariste, the niece of Clysthenes, who had been 
instrumental in terminating the tyranny of the Peisistratidae. He had 
the misfortune to resemble Peisistratus in person, and from this cause singular 
alone, was constrained, for a long time, to conceal his shining talents ; S'Srici^to 
for so violent was the general prejudice against the recollection of that Peisistratu*. 

T 2 



276 



PERICLES. 



B. c. 499. tyrant, that the abilities of Pericles would only have increased the 
popular jealousy which the likeness of his person to Peisistratus could 
not have failed to arouse. Though his extraction, therefore, was 
noble, his qualifications great, and his interest in the city extensive, 
Pericles was constrained to cultivate, in a long retirement, his evident 
talents for public life; and thus ensured a more certain and more 
durable distinction. Meanwhile, he studied politics under Damon, 
who appeal's to have been well acquainted with the principles of the 
Athenian government. Nor did his noble pupil omit to acquire, 
amidst these practical studies, those of a more elegant kind; for, 
under the famous philosopher Anaxagoras, he made considerable pro- 
ficiency in astronomy and natural history, and fully accomplished 
himself in the art of oratory. Thus prepared, an occasion was at last 
offered to Pericles to emerge from his obscurity. Aristides was no 
more, Themistocles in banishment, and Cimon, the invigorating soul 
of the republic, was abroad, when the democratic party, which had 
been overawed by the authority and the unusual success of Cimon, 
began, in his absence, to raise disturbances against his character and 
Occasion of government. They only wanted a leader to complete their schemes, 
Into^ubH? an< ^ Pericles was but too well fitted to become their champion. His 
life. first measure, the procurement of a decree for Cimon's banishment, 

was decisive of his success as an orator, and indicative of his cha- 
B. c. 460. racter as a politician. The whole machinery of a well-managed 
intrigue was at once brought into action, and completely overmatched 
the honest and candid course of Cimon. Pericles, indeed, affected 
before the general assembly, to speak lightly of the accusation against 
his rival, while he secretly fermented and rejoiced at his condemna- 
tion ; and when Elpinice, the sister of Cimon, solicited him on behalf 
of her accused brother, he is said to have replied, with a contemptuous 
lightness, " You are become, madam, a little too old to be employed 
on occasions such as these." 

Some time before the banishment of Cimon, Ephialtes, encouraged, 
it is supposed, by Pericles, had disseminated amongst the people 
various calumnies against the high court of the Areopagus, which 
exercising an unrestricted jurisdiction in the punishment of many 
popular crimes, rendered it a strong check upon the people. None 
could be admitted a member of this august tribunal who had not dis- 
charged the high office of archon with honour, or, at least, some other 
eminent magistracy of the state. Pericles, as we have seen, was of a 
noble family, but was not qualified to become a judge of the Areo- 
pagus, on account of his not having been elected to any office of 
importance. He quickly procured, in conjunction with Ephialtes, a 
decree to limit the power of this court, shortly after which the latter 
was assassinated. 

A war now commenced between the Athenians and the Epidaurians, 
in which the Corinthians declared themselves in favour of the latter. 
In this conflict the Athenians gained two victories, and then sent a 



PERICLES. 



277 



fleet against their old rivals, the iEginetans, on the suspicion of their B. c. 460. 
having secretly assisted the Corinthians. Here, also, the Athenian 
arms were successful, and their enemies purchased a peace by an 
acknowledgment of Athenian supremacy. During these transactions, 
Pericles was the most popular man at home, commanding all the 
resources of his country ; and this contest, short as it was, became 
highly important in its consequences, as it aggravated the rising spirit 
of internal discord throughout Greece, and was one of the co-operating 
causes of the Peloponnesian war. 

Athens had reached the summit of her glory, when the turbulent origin of 
spirit of the people, now become possessed of unlimited power, was ^^1^ 
no longer to be controlled by any prudence. The supposed insults war. 
which the Lacedaemonians had offered to them from the time of 
Themistocles until now, were brought before them in inflammatory 
harangues, and they now awaited an opportunity of revenge. The 
Spartans had sent a large army against the Phocians, and being thus, 
in some measure, unguarded at home, the Athenians chose this as 
an appropriate time to commence their attack. Collecting the forces 
of the Argives and Thessalians, they raised a fleet of fifty ships, 
sailed direct for the Peloponnesian isthmus, and there landed and 
encamped an army of 14,000 men, which, seizing the customary passes 
of the country, made the return of the Lacedaemonian army from 
Phocis impossible without a combat. The Spartans, consisting of 
11,000 men, commanded by Nicomedes, advanced to the encounter; 
but still in their efforts to avoid an actual battle with the Athenians, 
they endeavoured to effect a counter-march to Tanagra, in Bozotia. It Battle of 
was in the preparation for this battle that Pericles and the popular ^"^457 
party prevented the noble offers of Cimon from being accepted. The 
Athenian camp, however, was much divided; the Thessalian horse 
deserted at the commencement of the action, and adding weight 
to the Spartan side, contributed, in no small degree, to give the 
obstinately-disputed victory at length to the Spartans. The Athenians 
were ultimately obliged to retreat from the Peloponnesus with con- 
siderable loss, and the Spartans were glad to return to their city, to 
recruit themselves after so rude an encounter. 

The Thebans, who, on account of their having allied themselves Athenian 
with the Persian king, had lost their own independence and the under* 6114 
government of Bceotia, now applied to the Lacedemonians to be Myronides. 
restored to their ancient privileges, promising faithful alliance with the B - c * 454. 
Peloponnesian cause. This, which the Spartans readily granted, the 
Athenians, who had been the cause of the degradation of Thebes, took 
upon themselves to resent. An army was sent into Bceotia, under 
Myronides, the son of Callias ; but, notwithstanding the exertions of 
the popular party, many who had been cited to serve in his army 
refused to attend ; and the general, when urged to halt, in hopes of 
their ultimately joining him, replied, " That it became not a leader 
of such a people as the Athenians to wait for those who would at last 



1 



278 



PERICLES. 



Myronides 

ravages 

lioeotia. 



b. c. 454. come unwillingly, if they came at all ; while, with a few who were 
ardent in the cause, victory might surely be anticipated." Nor were 
his predictions falsified by the event ; for although a powerful force of 
the Thebans sustained an obstinate combat, the victory was at last 
complete on the side of the Athenians. The army, though exhausted 
by this conflict, was still in a condition to march to Tanagra. This 
place was now taken by storm, and its walls levelled with the ground ; 
nor did the troops of the expedition return to Athens until they had 
ravaged all Bceotia, as a punishment for its connection with Sparta. 
The naval commanders of Athens, emulating the land force, requested, 
through Tolmides, the admiral, a fleet of fifty galleys, to be manned 
with 1,000 men; he quickly collected, however, volunteers to the 
amount of 4,000. With this force he sailed for the coast of Laconia, 
a part of the Peloponnesian territories, and nearer to Sparta itself than 
any other yet attempted by the Athenian arms. Here the admiral 
landed his troops, and took possession of a town called Methone, 
which, however, he was soon obliged to relinquish on the approach 
of a Spartan army. He now sailed for Gythium, another sea-port 
belonging to the Lacedaemonians, which he took by surprise, burnt the 
town, the shipping, and all the naval stores ; and having ravaged the 
adjacent country, re-embarked, and attacked Zacynthus, and several 
smaller towns in its neighbourhood, with similar success. In Nau- 
pactus, which capitulated to his arms, he settled a colony of Messenians, 
and then led back his troops, laden with treasure, to Athens, intoxi- 
cated with the triumphs of their country. In these expeditions we 
do not, indeed, find the name of Pericles mentioned individually, but 
he was certainly the most popular leader of the party which at this 
time ruled Athens and directed these measures, whatever were their 
merits. 

The second invasion of the Peloponnesus was undertaken by 
Pericles himself. One thousand men were embarked on board a 
squadron of ships which lay in the bay of Pegae, and the command of 
this force was given to Pericles, with the general intention of protect- 
ing the friends of Athens by the way, and annoying her enemies in 
the Peloponnesus. Directing his course across the Corinthian Gulf, 
he immediately landed the troops on the territory of Sicyon, when 
the inhabitants of that place, scorning the protection which their walls 
might have afforded, marched out at once to give him battle on behalf 
of their country and themselves. The Athenian general, however, 
quickly routed their force, and plundered the country around. Having 
then recruited his army with a considerable body of Achaians, he re- 
embarked, and made an attempt upon (Eniadse, on the Acarnanian 
coast, in which, although he was unsuccessful, he was rewarded with 
a large booty. 

b. c. 450. O n tne return of Pericles to Athens, he found the aristocracy of the 
country regaining their influence, and warmly advocating the necessity 
of peace amongst the Grecian states; while the banished Cimon was 



Pericles 
invades the 
Pelopon- 
nesus. 

B. C. 454. 



PERICLES. 



279 



proposed by them as the only man from whose mediation with the B. c. 450. 
Spartans they could hope for the accomplishment of this object. 
From the period of Cimon's return from exile to the time of his death, He is 
he shared with Pericles the general administration of affairs. At this S° Wmon 
time Pericles was employed in restoring the federal government which in the 
had subsisted among the towns of Phocis over the treasury and oracle s° vernment - 
of Delphi. This the Lacedaemonians had imprudently destroyed, and 
awarded the whole possession of the temple and the administration of 
the sacred rights to the city of Delphi alone. The force, however, 
which marched under Pericles into Phocis soon restored the ancient 
domination, and happily without bloodshed; for the Spartans, con- 
scious of the wrong they had committed, suffered the Athenians to 
pass unmolested to their object, to which they strictly confined them- 
selves. 

But the death of Cimon was the signal for fresh internal disturbances Disturbances 
in Greece, and even amongst the Athenians themselves. To that Jf £n ath 
great Athenian, latterly, Pericles had been contented to assign the b. c. 449. 
palm of superiority ; and the good understanding which subsisted, in 
appearance at least, between these leaders of two opposite factions, 
satisfied the nobles and overawed the democracy. Now, however, 
some of the principal citizens of Cimon's party ill brooked the 
authority to which Pericles succeeded. Amongst others, we find 
Thucydides the historian standing forward as a leader of the aristo- 
cratical party, which assumed its old distinctiveness, until the two 
contending factions shook the safety of Athens to its base. En- 
couraged by these internal disturbances of their masters, or by the 
intrigues of the Lacedaemonians, now unawed by the virtues of Cimon, 
and uninfluenced by any regard of Pericles for their interests, the 
Megareans were the first to raise the standard of war. Megara being Revolt of the 
in the immediate neighbourhood of Attica, this movement argued a Me s areans - 
considerable degree of courage, and no little impatience of Athenian 
sovereignty. She implored, by her ambassadors, the protection of 
Sparta, but too late to avert the punishment of her revolt. The 
Athenians immediately ravaged their whole country, and closely in- 
vested their capital, the only large town they possessed. The Lace- 
daemonians were now roused, and they made an irruption into Attica, 
which dealt a corresponding mischief upon the Athenians; when 
Pericles marched, in person, against the invaders, with whom he 
determined to try the influence of the Attic gold, rather than depend 
upon the force of the Athenian arms. Pleistonax, the youthful king 
of the Spartans, who commanded their forces on this occasion, was 
accompanied into the field by one Chandrides, his tutor, whom the 
Athenian chieftain bribed with a considerable sum; and the Lace- 
daemonian army returned home without attempting further mischief. 
Pericles is said to have charged ten talents of gold to the public 
account on this occasion, and to have designated it as expended on a 
proper, but nameless service. This account was passed without 



280 



PERICLES. 



B. C. 447. 



Rashness of 
the admiral, 
Tolmides. 



B. C. 445. 



Truce for 
thirty years 
with Sparta. 



Severity of 
Pericles'ad- 
ministration. 



question ; and he was immediately entrusted with a command against 
Eubcea. 

Whilst Pericles was preparing for this expedition, Tolmides, the ad- 
miral, persuaded the Athenians to entrust him with a small army, with 
which he proposed to make an inroad into Bceotia. The experience of 
Pericles made him clearly foresee the unfortunate issue of this plan, but 
he opposed it in vain. Amongst other expressions of disapprobation, he 
calmly answered to Tolmides, " If you will not listen to my advice, 
sir, wait at least till Time shall have given you opportunity to con- 
sult him ; for such as you, he is the best of councillors." The expe- 
dition sailed, and the event proved exceedingly disastrous; for at 
Chseronea, Tolmides was attacked by a numerous host from the confe- 
derate cities around, himself slain, and his army completely routed. 
The Athenians were obliged to ransom their prisoners at an extravagant 
sum, and formally to renounce all claim of dominion over Bceotia. 
Nor were the misfortunes of this affair closed even here, for whilst 
this disgraceful treaty was pending, time was given, and temptations 
afforded, for several of the minor states of Greece to revolt from the 
dominion of Athens. 

Pericles had scarcely sailed on his intended expedition to Eubcea, 
when a new revolt of the Megareans occasioned his recall. This he 
quickly disposed of, re-embarked for Eubcea, and reduced their prin- 
cipal city Hestica ; where he planted a colony of Athenians, and ejected 
all the ancient inhabitants. Soon after this the rest of the island of 
Eubcea submitted to the Athenian arms, and the Lacedaemonians them- 
selves, weary of the war, agreed to a peace for thirty years. By the 
articles of this treaty Athens disclaimed any dominion over Nisaea, 
Achaea, Pagae, and Troezene ; and it was jointly agreed between the 
rival states, that any Grecian city which had not hitherto joined either 
party in the war, should be at liberty to offer her submission to that 
which, during the peace, she herself might choose. 

An instance of the severity of Pericles' personal administration 
occurred soon after this event. Corn was always such an object of im- 
portance, and frequently so scarce among the Athenian people, that 
many whole families, in the time of dearth, were obliged to sell them- 
selves as slaves, for the sake of their subsistence. Forty thousand 
bushels of this valuable commodity had been sent as a present to the 
Athenian citizens from Psammeticus, king of Egypt. This was, by 
law, to be divided amongst the free citizens. In the height of the 
rivalry which had formerly subsisted between Pericles and Cimon, the 
former had obtained an unjust decree levelled at the case of some 
children of the latter, by which persons of half Athenian blood only 
were disfranchised from their privilege as citizens. This law now bore 
severely on those who had the inhumanity to enact it, and no less than 
five thousand persons, who had usually been considered as freemen of 
Athens, were sold as slaves through the rigid punctuality of its execu- 
tion by Pericles. We may diverge from the strict order of events to 



PERICLES. 



281 



observe that, in after times, Pericles himself, the arbitrary author of this B. c. 445. 
decree, was constrained to move for its repeal, all his children of the 
whole Athenian blood having died before him, and only one child of 
half-blood, a son, taking his own name, surviving to comfort his old 
age. For the admission of this child to the privilege of an Athenian 
citizen the law in question was abrogated. 

Towards the end of the eighty-fourth Olympiad, the Athenians took B. C. 440. 
part in a war which had begun between the Samians and the Milesians, 
Many historians attribute the interference of his countrymen on this 
occasion to Pericles, who is said himself to have been influenced in this 
business by an obscure quarrel of his mistress, Aspasia, a celebrated 
courtesan, to espouse whom he had dismissed his former wife. The 
immediate pretence of the interposition of Athens is variously related. Ati^m 
Thucydides says that the Athenians were appealed to by both parties. jjTthe^r 
Plutarch affirms (what is by no means contradictory to the Grecian against 
historian) that the Athenians having directed both parties to lay aside " a 
their animosities, the Samians refused, and thence came the war with 
that people. Diodorus Siculus differs from both these authors, and 
tells us that the Samians themselves revolted from the Athenians, con- 
ceiving that their enemies had been assisted by them. From what 
cause soever the war originated, Pericles was evidently highly interested 
in the prosecution of it, and commanded in person the force employed 
on the occasion. He sailed with a fleet of forty sail, and subdued the 
Samians, who were utterly unable to withstand so great a force ; esta- 
blished a democracy in that city, and took fifty hostages of the nobles 
of Samos as a security for their continuing the present system of 
government. 

The force of arms to establish a government against the will of a Pericles' two 
people was soon, however, found to be inefficient. No sooner did JubStt] 
Pericles quit the island of Samos, than the inhabitants threw off the 
Athenian yoke, expelled the garrison which the Athenians had left 
there, and contrived means to carry off the hostages at Lemnos. But 
the determined mind of Pericles was not thus to be thwarted ; on his 
return to Athens he fitted out sixty galleys, and a large land armament 
to renew the war. In the mean time the Samian fleet had increased to 
seventy sail ; and although Pericles, out of his sixty vessels, had de- 
tached sixteen, in order to gain intelligence of the Phoenician fleet, he 
attacked the enemy with the remaining forty-four, and utterly defeated 
them near the island of Tragiae. A reinforcement which he received 
after this action, amounting to forty more ships from Athens, and the 
auxiliary force of twenty-five vessels, which now joined him from Chios 
and Lesbos, enabled him to invest Samos both by land and sea. Whilst 
affairs were in this situation, misled by false intelligence, and leaving 
the remaining part of his fleet unsupported, Pericles was induced to 
sail off the coast with sixty ships, expecting to meet the Phoenician 
fleet. Advantage of his absence was immediately taken by the Samians 
to attack and destroy the besieging squadron, commanded by Tesagoras ; 

I 



282 



PERICLES. 



b. c. 440. a victory which made them so completely masters of the sea for four- 
teen days, that they supplied themselves with provisions and all other 
necessaries for the long-protracted siege which Samos afterwards sus- 
tained. Pericles, however, soon returned to his post off the island, and 
was shortly afterwards supported by another squadron of eighty ships 
His final from Athens. He prosecuted the siege with great vigour, and after 
success. n j ne mon ths of active resistance the Samians surrendered at last at dis- 
B. c. 6 J. cre tf on> jj e demolished the fortifications of the island, carried off all the 
Samian fleet, obliged the inhabitants to deliver hostages for their future 
allegiance, and to pay to Athens the whole expenses of the war. On 
the return of the conqueror to that city, his deficiencies in the conduct 
of the war were forgotten in its final success ; he pronounced one of 
the finest orations now extant in the Greek language in honour of those 
who had fallen in the contest ; and so great was the effect of his elo- 
quence, that the ladies of Athens surrounded him with acclamations of 
joy, and crowned him with garlands of olive, the highest trophy of 
Grecian honour. 

warvith Not long after this, and about the second year of the eighty-fifth 
B°c nt 439 Oty m pi a d' arose a second contest between the Corinthians and Athe- 
nians, which revived the Peloponnesian war ; begun, as heretofore, in 
the spirit of wanton and restless jealousy on both sides, and terminating 
in the utter extinction of the political importance of Athens. A con- 
test of little importance between the Corcyrians and the Corinthians 
was the origin of this disastrous quarrel. The Corcyrians, originally a 
colony of the Corinthians, had founded a settlement on the shores of 
the Adriatic, without the licence of the mother-country, which they 
called Epidamnum. Disputes arising at this latter place, one party- 
applied to Corcyra for arbitration, and having their petition rejected, by 
direction of the Delphic oracle, referred the settlement of the affairs 
to the Corinthians, to whom they offered the sovereignty of the place ; 
an offer which was immediately accepted, and the required assistance 
afforded them. The faction of the Epidamnians thus aided by the 
Corinthians, now expelled the adverse party from the settlement, and 
these in their turn sought refuge at Corcyra, the citizens of which 
resolved to resent the interference of the Corinthians. A fleet was 
despatched to Epidamnum to assert their rights, and an action ensued 
with the small fleet of the united Epidamnians and Corinthians, in 
which the Corcyrians claimed the victory, and in this stage of the contest 
applied to Athens for assistance. At about the same period the 
Corinthians also sent ambassadors to Athens on the like business. 
This double appeal was highly gratifying to Athenian pride ; and was 
regarded as an acknowledgment of that supremacy over the minor states 
of Greece for which she had so often contended. She is presented to 
us at this time as at the height of her glory and her power ; and if 
those who guided her councils had only exercised that moderation in 
her prosperity which had elevated her to her present situation, doubt- 
less she had long retained it. But the constitution of the Attic 



PERICLES. 



283 



government was totally changed; the power of the nobles and the B. c. 439. 
wealthy was extinguished ; whilst the people and their demagogues 
wielded, with their violent but unsteady spirit, the whole of her in- 
valuable resources. 

The Athenians made a hasty defensive treaty with the 'Corcyrians, Treaty 
which ultimately involved them in the whole issue of the war, which corcyrians. 
soon became vigorous on both sides. The Corcyrians, with ten Athe- 
nian ships, commanded a naval force of one hundred and twenty 
vessels, while the Corinthian fleet, with that of their allies, amounted to 
one hundred and fifty sail. When the two fleets came in sight of each 
other, the Corcyrians complimented the Athenians with the honourable 
place of the right wing of the battle, and dividing their own force into 
distinct squadrons, immediately sailed into action. The Athenians at 
first appeared to engage but coldly in the conflict, but their allies, the 
Corcyrians, being nearly beaten, they fell boldly on, and compelled the 
Corinthians, before almost masters of the day, to turn their attention 
entirely to their own defence. Both parties ultimately retired from the 
combat claiming the victory, and prepared for a fresh encounter on the 
following day. In the morning they again drew out in order of battle, 
when the Corinthians suddenly retired, making full sail homeward from 
the scene of action. Soon after, the appearance of a reinforcement of 
twenty sail sent by Pericles from Athens, which had been first dis- 
covered by the Corinthians, joined the allies, and well accounted for 
the flight of the enemy. In the extremely doubtful issue of this battle 
it appeared that 1,000 prisoners were made, and seventy ships of the 
enemy sunk by the Corinthians, who lost thirty vessels and very con- 
siderable spoils. This action was remarkable as the largest sea-fight 
that ever took place between the rival states of Greece, for no less 
than two hundred and seventy vessels were engaged in it. 

But the evils of this imprudent interference of the Athenians began This war 
now to be seen. In consequence of the Corcyrian alliance, the Athe- lf™^\ s 
nians issued an order to Potidsea, a Macedonian town acknowledging hostilities in 
their supremacy, to demolish its walls ; to send back certain officers Greece * 
whom they had received from Corinth, and to give hostages for their 
good conduct. Potidsea, although an ally of Athens, had originally 
been a colony of Corinth, and thus arose the jealousy which occasioned 
these harsh and peremptory orders. Symptoms of universal hostility 
to Athens now appeared in the states around. The Corinthians and 
their allies were much irritated ; the oppressed Potidasans were 
strongly instigated to revolt ; and Perdiccas, king of Macedon, who 
had some time since been at open war with the Athenians, now gladly 
seized the opportunity to distress them, by exciting and assisting the 
malcontents. The Potidaeans, however, deputed ambassadors to Athens 
to deprecate the harsh orders which had been sent them ; but in the 
mean time to prepare for the worst, they also sent messengers to 
Sparta entreating support, where they met the deputies from Corinth 
and Megara. By these loud and general complaints Sparta was at 



284 



PERICLES. 



b. c. 439. length roused to head the conspiracy against Athens, and the universal 

flames of war shortly afterwards broke forth throughout Greece, 
stateo? ^ n ^ e mean *i me » tne domestic affairs of Athens present the character 

Athens. of Pericles in no amiable point of view. Avowedly at the head of a 
violent democracy, there was yet one man, the celebrated Thucydides, 
who presumed to contend against his tyrannical exercise of power, and 
disputed both the legality and the policy of his actions. This patriotic 
conduct rendered the longer presence of Thucydides intolerable in 
Athens, and Pericles resolved to punish him by means of the ostra- 
cism. The question proposed was, whether Thucydides or Pericles 
were to be banished, and it was soon decided by the democracy in 
favour of their darling leader. A second circumstance happened about 
the same time to develop and disgrace the character of Pericles. Her- 
miphus, the tragedian, accused Aspasia, the courtesan, and especial 
favourite of Pericles, of impiety to the gods, and of acting as a pander 
to the libidinous pleasures of her protector, in the seduction of many 
wives and daughters of the citizens. The day of trial arrived, and 
Pericles, mounting the tribunal himself, spoke at large, and with 
many tears, in her defence ; a circumstance never remarked of him on 
any other occasion. Aspasia was acquitted by his exertions; but, 
about this time various indications of the decline of his public influence 
appeared. The storm was gathering over his country from without, 
and, irritated and alarmed at the threatening prospect, no little discon- 
tent and dissatisfaction with their leaders appeared amongst the people 
at home. Anaxagoras the philosopher, the friend and tutor of Pericles, 
was the first to feel the popular displeasure. Diopithes (hitherto an 
obscure individual) moved for a decree to declare it criminal to conceal 
from the people information of any persons teaching doctrines subver- 
sive of the national religion, under the colour of professing natural phi- 
losophy. The force of this decree was not designed to expend itself 
on the master, Anaxagoras, but was evidently levelled also at Pericles, 
the disciple. To quiet the public mind under these circumstances, 
Friends of Pericles dismissed Anaxagoras from Athens, but attended him to the 
d£"raced. gates with every mark of personal respect, professing undiminished 
friendship for him. Suidas, however, states positively, that the 
punishment of imprisonment fell upon this philosopher, and that 
Pericles pleaded his cause in vain. To this indirect disgrace of Peri- 
cles followed the motion of Dracontides, in a public assembly, that the 
chief should immediately bring his accounts before the people, which 
he was fortunately able to do, with the utmost clearness and confidence : 
shortly after which he was again attacked in the person of a friend. 
Menon, a superior workman employed by Phidias, whose intimacy 
with Pericles was well known, accused that celebrated statuary of 
having purloined the gold which had been consigned to him for en- 
riching the statue of Athene. This latter affair, involved the integrity 
of both the friends ; for the statuary had worked under the especial 
direction of Pericles, and had carved on the shield of the goddess the 



PEEICLES. 



285 



figure of the chieftain in combat with an Amazon. The issue, how- B.C. 439. 
ever, was most creditable to both ; Phidias was able to take off the 
gold from the statue without injury to the main figure, and it proved 
to be of the full weight and value first delivered to him ; thus justify- 
ing the selection of his patron, and exhibiting an unexpected triumph 
of his art. 

It is generally supposed that Pericles had been successfully endea- Message 
vouring to regain some portion of his usual influence over the people, from y P arta - 
while ambassadors from the different states of Greece were exciting 
the Lacedaemonians to retaliation and revenge for the late haughty 
conduct of Athens. Certain Athenian deputies happening to be at 
Sparta on other affairs, the magistracy of that state professed to give 
a fair hearing to both parties. The result of their deliberation was a 
message to the Athenians, containing the following requisitions : — First, 
that all those Athenians who had sprung from the family of Megacles, 
a race declared execrable by their own law, on account of the attempted 
usurpation of Cylon, should now be exiled from their city. This in- 
junction was directly pointed at Pericles, who had been universally 
denounced as the author of the late Corinthian war, and was, on his 
mother's side, related to the family of Megacles; that the siege of 
Potidsea should be immediately raised ; that the iEginetans should be 
forthwith freed from the Athenian domination ; that the ports of 
Attica should be open to the Megareans ; and that the several states 
of Greece should be left, in future, free from any pretended subordi- 
nation to Athens. On the arrival of these demands at Athens, Pericles 
exerted all his eloquence and influence to obtain their rejection. He 
truly reminded the people that, whatever the Lacedsemonians might 
pretend respecting their sympathy for the discontented Greeks, it was 
evident that the ascendancy of Athens was coveted for Sparta. They 
had, he asserted, always hated, and now sought for an opportunity to 
humble her power. That it must, however, be the fault of the Athe- 
nians themselves, if these envious wishes were to succeed in their 
object, for that Athens was, after all, much more fertile in warlike 
resources than the Peloponnesians and the whole of their allies. He 
urged upon them, also, to consider that, if their rivals discovered the 
least symptoms of fear in the reception of the present application, their 
demands would be hereafter more unreasonable than at present. To 
avoid extremities, however^ and to assume some appearance of mo- The reply 
deration, he proposed to reverse the decree against the Megareans, on per£. b)l 
condition that the Spartans would permit free ingress and egress to 
their city on the part of the Athenians and their allies ; to release all 
the Grecian cities from their obedience to Athens, if the Spartans 
would, in a similar manner, release their dependencies ; and to leave 
all future matters of dispute to a fair arbitration. " This," added Pe- 
ricles, " is a course both just and honourable ; and if, in consequence 
of a rejection of such terms by Sparta, a war be inevitable, let the 
Athenians undertake it with a vigorous cheerfulness, and they will 



286 



PERICLES. 



b. c. 439. quickly find the seeming importance of their enemies vanish before 
them ; for from the greatest extremity arises to the state and its leaders, 
as well as to each citizen, the greatest honour." 

Some reasons are stated by Plutarch which will sufficiently account 
for the peculiar earnestness with which Pericles endeavoured to excite 
his countrymen to this war, besides his being almost directly proscribed 
by the demands of the Spartans. He had been entrusted with public 
Confusion of money to a large amount, and had, at this time, according to that 
his accounts, biographer, real occasion to seek the cover of warlike preparations, to 
conceal his profuse administration of it. A family anecdote of Pericles 
is here related by him, as illustrative of the fact. Alcibiades, then a 
boy, and the son of the sister of Pericles, inquired one day of his 
uncle, why he was so melancholy and thoughtful ; to which Pericles 
replied, "Because he knew not how to give an open account of his 
trusts." The boy, whose uncommon shrewdness of intellect, as well 
as want of rectitude, were, even at this tender age, remarkable, rejoined, 
" Study rather, then, how thou may est avoid to give any account 
of it." This story rests upon the authority of Plutarch alone ; but it 
is certain that the second fatal contest between Athens and Sparta was 
mainly attributable to the exertions of this still popular chieftain. 
The Thebans The first actual rupture was caused by the Thebans, who, six months 
Ratea! a ^ er tne battle of Potidsea, sent Eurymachus at the head of three hundred 
b. c. 431. men to invest the town of Plataea, the inhabitants of which had been 
zealous in the cause of Athens. Their force being small for the attack 
of this place, they first endeavoured to corrupt some of the Plata?an 
guard, who, at an appointed time, opened their gates to the assailants, 
and in the first confusion of the people enabled them to seize the walls 
and the fortifications ; but when the smallness of their number was dis- 
covered, the inhabitants rose upon them in the night, slew half of them, 
and took their chief and the rest of his force prisoners of war. Not 
long afterwards a second party, ignorant of the fate of the first, arrived 
from Thebes before the gates of Plataea, to whom the inhabitants offered 
to release the Theban prisoners, on condition of this new force for- 
bearing to plunder the adjacent country. In case of their refusal of these 
terms, they threatened to put the prisoners to instant death. Alarmed 
at this menace, the invading army withdrew from the country, when 
the faithless Plataeans butchered the whole of their captives, alleging 
that they had never made any promise of liberating them, unless their 
countrymen should have concluded a formal treaty. The news of this 
attempt on Plataea soon reached Athens, where an arrest of all the 
Boeotians then in Attica was immediately ordered; and a large supply 
of provisions was forwarded to the town under a convoy, which was 
instructed, in case of necessity, to bring the wives and children of the 
Plataeans to Athens. 
The general A general conflict throughout Greece now approached, of the im- 
.Ipproaches. V 0Ttmce of which every party seemed aware. Messengers were 
despatched on all sides to summon the several allies of the rivals ; and 



PERICLES. 



287 



even their common enemy, the Persian king, was solicited by each to B. C. 431. 
oppose the ambition of the other. The great majority of the Grecian 
cities declared in favour of the Spartans, who assumed the title of " the 
deliverers of Greece ;" and amongst their allies they included all the 
Peloponnesians, except the Argives and part of the Achaeans, who 
professed themselves friendly to both parties. The inhabitants of 
Pellene, in Achaia, also ranged themselves, at the beginning of the Spartan 
war, on the side of Sparta, and all the other Achaeans joined them allies - 
shortly after. Beyond the Peloponnesus they obtained the alliance of 
the Megareans, the Phocians, the Locrians, the Boeotians, the Ambra- 
ciots, the Leucadians, and the Anactorians. Corinth, Megara, Sicyonia, 
Pellene, Elea, Leucadia, and Ambracia, supplied them with ships for 
the war ; whilst Phocia, Bceotia, and Locria furnished horsemen ; and 
the foot soldiers were raised from the other allied states. On the 
Athenian side we find the Chians, the Lesbians, and the Plataeans, and Allies of 
those of the Messenians who inhabited Naupactus ; most of the Acar- Athens * 
nanians; the Corcyrians, and the Zacynthians. To these must be 
added those Carians who inhabited the sea-coast; the Dorians, the 
Ionians, and several other minor towns, particularly those of Thrace ; 
the islands lying on the east, betwixt Peloponnesus and Crete, and all 
the Cyclades, excepting Melus and Thera. The Chians, the Lesbians, 
and the Corcyrians furnishing shipping • and the other states, indiscri- 
minately, horse and foot soldiers and money. It must, however, be 
noticed, that although this statement is taken from the accurate pages 
of Thucydides, who was himself contemporary with these events, it 
omits the states of Eubcea and Samos, whom we shortly afterwards 
find in the Athenian alliance. 

The Lacedaemonians were the first to assemble their allies on the Invasion of 
Peloponnesian isthmus, in great force, with the avowed intention of in- AttlCii - 
vading Attica. Here Archidamus, the Spartan king and commander 
in chief, advised the allies to proceed with great circumspection, not- 
withstanding their immense strength, and to send a herald to Athens, 
requesting to know if that city still abode by its former haughty pro- 
positions. The messenger returned without having been granted an 
audience, and the invading army advanced for its original purpose ; — 
Archidamus, with the main body, into the heart of Attica, wliilst the 
Boeotians, at the same time, invaded the territories of the Plataeans. 

On the other side the Athenians collected their strength to stand on 
the defensive. Pericles, as he had been the principal promoter of the 
war, now became its chief director. He caused the inhabitants to con- 
vey all their valuables into the city, and to busy themselves, night and Resources 
day, in fitting out their ships. He cheered the people with assurances of Athens - 
of their resources, stating the yearly revenue alone of Athens to amount 
to six hundred talents of tribute, besides other annual dues and im- 
posts ; six thousand talents of silver, he said, lay ready coined in the 
castle, and five hundred talents more in bullion and plate. Their army 
he reckoned at 19,000 foot and 1,200 horse; 6,000 foot archers, and 



288 



PERICLES. 



Cautious 
conduct of 
Pericles. 



B. c. 431. a great number of bowmen on horseback ; while their navy comprised 
three hundred ships ready for sea. With all this array of power, Pe- 
ricles, however, thought it prudent for them to keep within their walls. 
To disarm all suspicion of himself, fearing as Archidamus advanced into 
the country, that general would be induced, by a former friendship be- 
tween them, to spare his estates, Pericles assigned all his lands to the 
public. Complaints against his administration, however, silently spread : 
his very friends were obliged to acknowledge him the principal insti- 
gator of the war, and he was now called upon to attempt a bold effort 
to regain his reputation, by repelling the enemy from under their walls. 
But Pericles, aware of the inferiority of his strength, continued firm in 
his plans, alike amidst threats and entreaties : he still refused to ven- 
ture a battle by land, and when pressed for his reasons, he exclaimed, 
" Trees when cut down may sprout out again, but men once lost can- 
not be recovered." This prudent chief well knew wherein the best 
force of the republic consisted ; he equipped a fleet of a hundred gal- 
leys, which he despatched with others to ravage the Peloponnesian 
coasts as occasion offered ; and carrying on a war of retaliation, even- 
tually distressed the enemy by his expeditions more than they could 
reduce the Athenians by their present mode of warfare. This fleet 
was shortly afterwards joined by a squadron from Corcyra ; whilst 
another was commissioned against the Locrians. The land force from, 
the latter armament took Thronium, and pillaged iEgina, one of the 
principal causes of the war; and thinking it a convenient station for 
the future increase of the Athenian power, they left there a colony of 
Athenians. Thus the Lacedasmonians, although the first to attack, and 
to distress their rivals, had, at the end of the year, little reason to boast 
of their success. The immoveable prudence of Pericles compelled 
them to retire from Attica through Boeotia, and here the invaders sepa- 
rated to their several cities. No sooner had this transpired, than 
Pericles assumed the attitude of a conqueror. Placing himself at the 
head of his best troops, he made a rapid incursion into Megara, and 
plundered it unsparingly throughout. During the winter, the bodies 
of those who had been slain in the war were interred with the usual 
solemnities, and Pericles himself pronounced the funeral oration. 

The next year brought with it a renewal of hostilities between Sparta 
and Athens, conducted upon the same principles as the last campaign. 
But a curse more direful than war now afflicted Athens. The plague 
raged among the citizens with the most tremendous fury, sweeping off 
great numbers of the people daily, and at last reaching the family of 
Pericles. Yet was this chief himself reserved awhile, amidst the dis- 
tresses of his fellow-citizens, to guide the councils of his country with 
his usual prudence and fortitude. When Archidamus again invaded 
and ravaged Attica, the Athenians were once more restrained by the 
influence of Pericles from venturing upon the unequal combat offered 
them ; whilst with a hundred Athenian ships and fifty auxiliary sail, 
supplied from Chios and Lesbos, he embarked for the Peloponnesian 



The plague 
of Athens. 

B. a 430 



PERICLES. 



289 



shores, and well sustained the honour of the Athenian arms. Archi- B. c. 430. 
darnus and his invading arniy were obliged to retreat from Attica, 
without fighting, to repel these inclusions on their own territories, while 
Pericles and his armament withdrew as the enemy advanced. He then 
sent a large force under the command of Agnon and Cleopompus 
against Chalcis and Potidaea, the latter place having still held out 
against the Athenian forces. Here the plague wasted the troops of the its ravages 
republic to such an extent, that out of 4,000 men but 1,500 returned inthecam P- 
to Athens. The citizens now sent an embassy to Sparta, praying for 
peace, and being absolutely refused, oppressed with the double attack 
of war and pestilence, they rose in violent tumult against Pericles, as 
certainly the cause of the one evil which afflicted them, if not, accord- 
ing to their superstitious opinions, the author of both. The eloquence 
and the usual artifices of this experienced statesman could not now, for 
the moment, avert their ras;e : thev fined him eighty talents, and dis- 
missed him front his offices of trust and honour. The domestic con- 
cerns of Pericles became also at this moment most afflicting. His son, 
Xanthippus, a profligate youth, quitted his house, and renounced his 
authority because he could no longer be supplied with money for his 
extravagancies. The plague which still raged in Athens with unre- 
mitted fury, ended this unnatural dispute and the life of the thankless 
Xanthippus by the same stroke. Shortly after, and by the same And in the 
disease, perished the sister and the greater part of the family ofp^^ 5 , of 
Pericles, and, lastly, his onlv remaining legitimate son, Paralus. The 
afflicted parent is said to have burst into convulsive grief on placing 
the accustomed chaplet of flowers on the head of the corpse, and his 
noble spirit seemed now utterly overwhelmed. He was soon after 
restored to the honours of which he had lately been deprived, and suc- 
ceeded to more absolute power than ever. By the persuasions of 
Alcibiades and others of his friends, he came forth from retirement 
again to receive the ready acclamations of the people ; and a proof of 
his undiminished influence is afforded by the law which was imme- 
diately passed, permitting him to register his son of half Athenian 
blood amongst the free citizens of Athens, by the same name as his 
father, in contradiction to the decree formerly proposed by Pericles 
himself. 

During these transactions in Athens, the Peloponnesians sent a fleet The Peio- 
of one hundred galleys against the enemy, and overran the island of ^rpriJeds. 
Zacynthus. The Lacedaemonians also deputed ambassadors to entreat 
assistance from the king of Persia, and to Sytalces, king of Thrace. 
Padocus, the son of this latter monarch, being a citizen of Athens, 
seized the Spartan ambassadors, aud delivered them over to the Athe- 
nians, who immediately slew them, in alleged revenge for the slaughter 
of some of their citizens, who had been put to death by the Lacedfe- 
monians while peaceably employed in the Peloponnesus. During the 
winter of this year the Athenians sent a fleet of twenty ships, under 
Melesander, to Caria, Lycia, and some other places, to colled resources, 
[h. g.] It 



290 



PERICLES. 



b. c. 430. in which expedition this officer was accidentally slain. It was about 
this period too, that Potidaea, wearied out with famine, at length 
capitulated to the Athenian arms ; the men of the town being allowed 
to leave the place with one garment each, and the women with two. 
The city being emptied, was replenished with a colony from Athens, 
and thus closed the second year of the Peloponnesian war. 
Third year The third year of this fatal conflict, was consumed in the tedious 
of the war. g. f Plataea by the Peloponnesians. Archidamus, with a large 
army, invested the town and laid waste the country round it. The 
Plataeans, at one time, offered to capitulate, but, as they were required 
to abandon the city and the cause they had undertaken, and not to 
return to their country until the termination of the war, they consulted 
their allies, the Athenians, on the subject, by whom they were strength- 
ened in their determination to continue an obstinate defence. Archi- 
damus, on the refusal of these terms, redoubled his efforts of attack, 
and succeeded in setting fire to the town, the greater part of which 
was burnt to the ground ; but the Plataeans, making several sallies, 
and having cut off many of the besieging army, Archidamus turned 
the siege into a blockade, and leaving a sufficient number of troops to 
man the entrenchments, returned with the remainder of his force to 
Sparta. 

In the latter end of this summer, the plague which had so severely 
afflicted Athens, proved fatal to its ruler. Pericles sank under it, in 
the unusual manner of a slow consumption. The affecting circum- 
stances of his death have been carefully preserved by Thucydides. 
Some of his elder friends, the first people of Athens, attended him at 
its approach, and conceiving him, in the last extremity, to be insensible 
of their conversation, talked freely with each other of his character, 
Death of and mentioned several circumstances in his praise. The dying Pericles 
b c 429 suddenly appeared to recover, and interrupted them, by expressing his 
surprise that they should insist upon those actions of his life which 
were rather vainglorious than useful, and in which fortune had so 
large a share, whilst they had forgotten to mention the greatest feature 
of his administration, i hat no citizen of Athens had ever cause to put on 
a mourning garment through him. These were the last words of this 
great Athenian. 

Character of As a statesman and a warrior, the talents of Pericles have never 
Pericles. k een questioned ; as a man of learning, and a patron of the fine arts, 
he was equally eminent. Swayed principally, perhaps, by private 
interest, he appears to have induced his country to begin a war fatal 
in its issue ; but for the events which transpired after his death he 
cannot be thought responsible, and they only proved that the man who 
advised the measure was he alone who was capable of directing it. 
With the literature of the day he was eminently acquainted ; and an 
anecdote has been preserved respecting his scientific knowledge, which 
is not without its interest. On the embarkation of a certain naval force, 
commanded by Pericles, the pilot, terrified by what he deemed the 



PERICLES. 



291 



unlucky omen of an eclipse of the sun, prognosticated defeat and mis- B.C 429. 
fortune. The chief, perceiving this dismay spreading, suddenly pulled 
off his cloak, and muffling the pilot's face with it, asked him if that 
were terrible and disastrous? " No," said the seaman. " What dif- 
ference then," said Pericles " do you make betwixt one darkness and 
the other ? they both proceed from a like cause ; only that which 
shades the sun, is a larger body than the cloak which covers your eyes." 
This plain remark aroused the spirits of the pilot and of the crew, and 
the expedition proceeded without interruption. As the friend and 
patron of Phidias, he won the title of Olympius from his magnificence 
and splendour in the fine arts. But these great and shining qualities 
were sullied by prominent vices. Pericles was sensual anof dissolute 
in his pleasures, vainglorious, envious, and devoid of integrity in his 
politics, and frequently mean and selfish in his domestic life. In his 
prosperity he is said to have abandoned Anaxagoras, his tutor, until that 
philosopher, in despair, took the resolution of starving himself to death. 
It must, however, be confessed, that although he wanted the firmer 
virtues of Aristides, and the nobler soul of Cimon, Pericles yet threw 
a splendour and meretricious greatness about his very vices, and exer- 
cised the power with which he was invested with moderation and with 
great dignity. 




u2 



CHAPTER XI. 



Family and 
infancy of 
Alcibiades. 



Early 

character of 
Alcibiades. 



ALCIBIADES. 

FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 400. 

This celebrated Athenian, among the numerous advantages showered 
upon him by nature and fortune, enjoyed the estimation arising from 
an illustrious ancestry. He was the son of Clinias, who, after gaining 
high honour by fitting out a galley at his private cost, in which he 
fought at the battle of Artemisium, was slain in the contest at Coronea, 
where the Athenians were opposed to the Boeotians. Pericles was his 
near relative, and one of his guardians. He is said, indeed, by Corne- 
lius Nepos, to have passed his childhood in the house of that powerful 
and magnificent statesman. Amyclas, a woman of Sparta, was his 
nurse, and Zopynes his early instructor. For the information we have 
of these minute circumstances of his childhood we are indebted, 
according to Plutarch, to the friendship of Socrates, which rendered 
Alcibiades an object of interest to the admirers of that philosopher, 
who, therefore, recorded them in their writings. 

The haughty spirit of impetuosity and disdain, which so strongly 
marked his character when fully developed, was manifested in his 
youth. As a cart was driven along the public road in which he was 
playing at quoits with his companions, and approached the spot just 
as he was about to throw, he required the driver to stop till his turn 
was past ; and when he found that the man paid no attention to his 
demand, he threw himself on his face in the way of the horses, and 
defied the party to drive over him. The driver was so terrified at this 
daring conduct, that he stopped the horses and quietly waited until 
Alcibiades had thrown. When he feared that he should have been 
overcome in wrestling, he vehemently bit the hand of his antagonist, 



ALCIBIADES. 



293 



to whose reproach that he bit like a "woman, he replied, " No — like a 
lion." He pertinaciously resisted all efforts to instruct him in the art 
of playing on the flute, and ridiculed those who submitted to learn it. 
For he alleged that the exercise distorted the features and prevented the 
use of speech; and, therefore, was fit only for the Thebans who had 
no power of conversation, and ought to be rejected by Athenians, who 
revered Minerva and Apollo as tutelary deities ; the first of whom 
threw away the flute, and the latter stripped off the skin of one of its 
professors. By this raillery, the young Alcibiades brought the know- 
ledge of that instrument, before fashionable, into contempt, and caused 
it to be excluded from the arts which gentlemen could honourably cul- 
tivate. It is reported by Antiphon, that he slew one of his own ser- 
vants in the place of public exercises, by a blow inflicted with a staff : 
but Plutarch thinks that the authority of one, writing professedly to 
defame him, ought not to be received as satisfactory evidence of an 
instance of passion so fatal. 

Amidst the irregularities of Alcibiades in his early years, there Friendship of 
were indications of no common genius. These drew the attention of Socratesfor 
Socrates, and caused him to take a great interest in the welfare of one, 01 ia 
whose future life must, he foresaw, prove a course of splendid good, or 
of daring evil. It shows him, indeed, not to have been destitute of a 
love for virtue, that while surrounded by flatterers, he felt the value of 
the philosopher's regard, and repaid it with becoming reverence. The 
discourse of his great adviser would even affect him to tears, and 
appear for a time to soften him into goodness, and charm him into 
wisdom. But he was not born, long to endure even the gentlest con- 
trol. His spirits were too elastic, and his sense of luxurious pleasure 
too intense, to suffer him to persevere in listening to the still voice of 
truth and of virtue. He perpetually broke from the instructions of 
Socrates into excesses of insolence which no monitor was able to con- 
trol. Thus, having haughtily refused the invitation of Amytus to a 
banquet, and indulged at his own house in copious draughts of wine 
with his young companions, he sallied forth to the place where his 
presence had been requested, and commanded his servants to seize 
half the vessels of gold and silver which covered the tables, and to bear 
them away in triumph. The guests naturally expressed great indigna- 
tion at this proceeding : but their host excused the intruder, and even 
said that he ought rather to thank him for what he had left, than blame 
him for that which he had taken. His generosity had sometimes as 
little of reason or of justice as his outrages. He invited to supper an 
Athenian who had sold his little estate, and presented him with the 
money derived from the sale ; and after the repast, returning to him the 
gold, desired him to appear on the following day, when the public 
revenue should be offered to farm, and offer a higher sum than any 
other bidder. In the morning the man appeared, and according to 
directions given him, offered a talent more than the usual price, which 



294 



ALCIBIADES. 



greatly disconcerted those who were accustomed to farm the taxes, 
because their custom was to pay out of the profits of one year the rent 
of the preceding. They demanded whom he would bring forward as 
his sureties, hoping that, by this means, they should prevent his design. 
But Alcibiades, who, from a distance, observed the success of his plan, 
deprived them of tins resource by exclaiming that the bidder was his 
friend, and that he would answer for the fulfilment of the engagement 
with his fortune. They then entreated their opponent to retract, and 
offered him a talent, which, at length, at the advice of his prompter, 
he accepted, and thus obtained an ample sum for the relief of his dis- 
tresses. Even the feelings of admiration which Alcibiades cherished 
for the works of genius were not expressed without manifesting the 
arrogant disposition of his mind. Thus, when he had entered the 
school of a teacher, and asked him for one of Homer's poems, and 
received for answer that no work of that poet was taught there, he 
struck the master on the face, and abruptly departed. He made a fitter 
retort on another occasion, when a reply scarcely less provoking was 
given to the same question. The tutor had asserted that he had Homer 
corrected by himself, and Alcibiades retorted, that one able to improve 
Homer, might well aspire to teach men, instead of condescending to 
instruct children in the first rudiments of learning. His love of singu- 
larity was evident in his minutest actions. Having bought a dog of 
great beauty, for seventy minas, he ordered his tail, which was his chief 
ornament, to be cut off ; and on being told that all Athens laughed at 
the absurdity of his conduct, replied, that he had then gained his desired 
object, for he was desirous that the citizens should find matter of dis- 
course and censure in this affair, lest they should talk of worse things 
respecting him. 

Carriage of It is singular that one of the most wanton of his excesses ended in 
AJcibiades. marr i a g . aT1 event, however, which had no power to make him 
adhere to virtue. From mere insolence, and to fulfil a boast made to 
his companions in riot, he struck Hipponicus, the father of Callias, a 
person of great wealth and importance, who had never offered him the 
slightest injury. The next morning he became sensible of the greatness 
of his offence ; and, in anxiety to make atonement, went to the house 
of the party to whom the insult had been offered, and told him that he 
was ready to receive any chastisement by way of retribution which he 
might think fit to inflict. Moved by this conduct, Hipponicus not only 
forgave him, but shortly after permitted him to receive the hand of 
his daughter Hipparete, who was affectionately devoted to him, and 
deserved his love. His irregularities, however, soon provoked her to 
leave him, and retire to the house of her brother. Of this measure he 
appeared regardless, and lived in the same course of dissipated plea- 
sure ; but when his wife appeared, according to the laws, before the 
archon, to deliver in person the instrument by which she sought for a 
divorce, he seized her with his characteristic impetuosity, and carried 



ALCIBIADES. 



295 



her by force home, no one daring to attempt her rescue. After this, 
she did not offer to leave him, but remained in his house till her death, 
which occurred shortly after, during his journey to Ephesus. 

Alcibiades, like all the nobles of Athens, became early in life a Early service 
soldier. In the field, Socrates was no less ready to defend him from £j Afield!* 
personal danger, than he had been in the city to secure him from the 
perils of vice and corruption. They lived in the same tent, and fought 
side by side in the expedition against Potidaea, where they both exerted 
themselves with great bravery. In one skirmish, when Alcibiades was 
wounded, Socrates saved him from being made prisoner, and instead of 
claiming the prize of valour for himself to which he was entitled, gave 
testimony in favour of him whom he had rescued, and persuaded the 
judges to bestow on him an honour which he trusted would animate 
his youth to the pursuit of honourable fame. At a subsequent period, 
Alcibiades had an opportunity of repaying a part of this obligation ; for, 
in the retreat after the battle of Delium, as he was mounted on horseback, 
while Socrates was on foot, he refused to retire, until he had, with the 
hazard of his life, brought into a place of safety his philosopher, friend, 
and preserver. 

The magnificent disposition of Alcibiades was not to be restrained Success of 
within moderate boundaries by the councils of his great adviser. He ^ 1 tJ 1 b e iades 
kept a most splendid retinue, and in the number and beauty of his Olympic 
horses and chariots, far surpassed all rivals. At one time he sent seven games - 
chariots to contend at the Olympic games, which no one had ever done 
before him, and obtained the first, second, and also either the third or 
fourth of the prizes. On occasion of this brilliant success, not only in- 
dividuals, but cities in their collective character, made him congratula- 
tory offerings. The Ephesians erected him a splendid tent; the 
Chians furnished him with provender and cattle for sacrifice ; and the 
Lesbians provided him with wine, for the service of rich banquets, 
which he gave with his characteristic profusion. In the midst of these 
triumphant revellings, however, he was charged with an act of mean- 
ness, in having claimed a chariot as his own, which he had purchased 
for another ; and legal proceedings were consequently instituted against 
him. We are informed that Socrates was his advocate ; but we do 
not know either the result of the cause, or the justice of the accusation 
on which it was founded. 

Addicted as Alcibiades was to pleasure, he soon found a restless Commence- 
desire to share in the administration of public affairs. Of the daring cast ^VaVT 
of his politics, his youthful advice to Pericles, his guardian, afforded a statesman, 
clear indication. When he understood that statesman to be perplexed 
how he should make up his accounts to present to the Athenians, he 
observed that it would be better for him to consider how he could 
altogether avoid accounting. He was endowed with an eloquence, the 
most insinuating and persuasive, one of the first endowments a politician 
could possess in a state like Athens. He was cautious in the selection 
of his words and phrases, that he might gratify the nice ears of his 



296 



ALCIBIADES. 



critical audience ; and so great a prepossession existed on his behalf in 
the public mind, that his splendid sins were regarded as virtues, and the 
very lisp which rendered his speech defective, was praised as graceful. 
His first appearance in a public assembly, though accidental, was fortu- 
nate. On inquiring into the occasion of a crowd which he saw collected, 
and finding that some one was scattering money amongst them, he went 
into the mob, and began to exercise a liberality of the same description. 
His bounty was received with loud applauses, which so delighted him, 
that he forgot to secure a quail which he was carrying beneath his 
robe, and saw the bird escape ; but it was instantly pursued by the 
grateful assembly, caught by a pilot named Antiochus, and restored to 
its owner. 

Defeat and When Alcibiades, with all the advantages of valour, eloquence, 
banishment, riches, popularity, and the friendship of Socrates, made his first efforts 
of Hyper-*™' to acquire political influence, he found only Pheeax, and Nicias, who 
bolus. afterwards was so honourably distinguished amidst the Sicilian disasters, 
as his rivals. There was, indeed, another, named Hyperbolus, who, 
although a mean and despicable person, hoped to gain some importance 
by the divisions among his superiors. This man endeavoured to pro- 
cure one of the three most conspicuous statesmen to be banished by 
ostracism, by inciting the party who favoured one of them against his 
opponents. Alcibiades, however, perceiving his design, united either 
with Nicias or Phaeax to render the scheme abortive, and succeeded in 
making the sentence of ostracism fall on its proposer himself, who had 
not the least fear of such a result. The Athenians soon after repented 
that they had dignified Hyperbolus, by fixing on his baseness the penalty 
which they had consecrated to distinguished worth ; and feeling that 
this instrument of their power was now debased, they never resorted to 
the ambiguous compliment in future, 
intrigues of This danger being thus averted, Alcibiades pursued the more am- 
Alcibiades bitious design of overthrowing the power of Nicias. That accom- 
NidaJ plished general had, a short time before, procured a nominal peace 
£ orthe „ between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, which his youthful 

breaking of . r . ' 

the peace, rival was anxious to see broken. His desire to plunge ms country 
again into a ruinous war, arose not only from his jealousy of the repu- 
tation which Nicias derived from having brought a destructive contest 
to a close, but from his personal resentment against the Lacedaemonians, 
who had not requested his services in procuring the treaty, and had 
slighted his attempts to win their favour. Fortunately for his design, 
the Spartans had just given offence, by delivering up Panactum 
dismantled and injured, and making a separate alliance with the 
Boeotians, without consulting the government of Athens. These cir- 
cumstances he made the themes of frequent and bitter invective, and 
did not fail to include Nicias in his reproaches, as- too much disposed 
to favour the Peloponnesian cause. As he saw the people of Argos 
were irritated against the Lacedaemonians, he sent emissaries to persuade 
them to sue for a separate peace with the Athenians, assuring them 



ALCIBIADES. 



297 



that it would be granted. By his persuasions they were induced 
to send ambassadors to Athens, who arrived there at the same time 
with those of Sparta, who came armed with full powers to settle all 
causes of dispute. This was a critical time ; and Alcibiades per- 
ceiving its importance, exerted all his cunning to secure his purposes, 
with little regard to justice or honour. Although the Lacedaemonian 
ambassadors had declared, in their audience with the senate, that they 
were invested with full powers, he prevailed on them, by promises to 
espouse their cause, to contradict the assertion in the assembly of the 
people, and affirm that they were only authorized to treat on definitive 
conditions. When they had thus been guilty, through his machinations, 
of manifest prevarication, and expected his support, he vehemently 
inveighed against their want of faith, and represented the conduct 
which he had thus prompted, as a specimen of the Spartan character. 
Thus he succeeded in turning the voice of the people against them ; 
but the assembly was adjourned, in consequence of the shock of an 
earthquake, without coming to any decision. His object, however, 
was only delayed. An embassy to Lacedaemon announced that, unless 
the Spartans would relinquish the alliance of the Boeotians, the Athe- 
nians would take the Argives into their league : being rejected, a treaty 
was concluded with the state of Argos, and the people of Mantinaea 
and Elis. Alcibiades, whose policy had effected these alliances, was 
appointed to command the armies of Athens. 

In the succeeding summer, the new commander entered Peloponnesus Alcibiades 
with a small party of Athenians, and a number of confederates who jjjj p e J" 
had joined him on his march, for the purpose of erecting a fort upon ponnesus. 
the Pelium of Achaia, which would totally have destroyed the empire 
of Corinth over the seas. But the Corinthians and Sicyonians, justly 
alarmed at his design, rushed to prevent him in such overpowering 
numbers, as compelled him to retire. 

The hopes which the Athenians had derived from the new coalition The Argives 
were, in the ensuing year, blasted by the signal defeat of the con- ^^Jf^; 
federates by the Lacedaemonians, at Mantinaea, in the greatest battle government 
that had ever yet been fought among the Greeks. At the commence- chan « ed - 
ment of the ensuing winter, the Spartan army once more took the field, 
and, advancing to Tegea, sent proposals for accommodation to Argos. 
Alcibiades, then in that city, attempted to procure the people to reject 
all the terms, but in vain. An armistice was at first agreed on, which 
was, after some time, followed by an offensive and defensive alliance, 
and the total separation of both Argives and Mantinaeans from the 
Athenian cause. Before the end of the year, and in the presence of 
Lacedaemonian troops, and by Spartan influence, the constitution of 
Argos, hitherto popular, was subverted, and an oligarchy established in 
its room, after the Laconian model. But the people were little dis- 
posed to acquiesce in this abolition of their rights ; and an opportunity 
soon occurred for the expression of their feeling. During the celebra- 
tion of a festival at Sparta, they rose against their oppressors , and, after 



298 



ALCIBIADES. 



Second 
revolution 
at Argos 
secured by 
Alcibiades. 



Insolence 
and excesses 
of Alcibiades. 



Scheme of 
the Sicilian 
expedition. 



a conflict, in which they were victorious, established their former con- 
stitution. The nobles, driven from the city, besought the succour of 
the Spartans, who came to a resolution to march against Argos, but 
suffered considerable time to elapse before they attempted to execute 
their design. In the mean time, Alcibiades determined to secure the 
future co-operation of the Argives with the Athenians, hastened to 
their city, sent three hundred, who were suspected to favour the 
Spartan cause, to the neighbouring islands, and persuaded the citizens 
to build long walls reaching to the sea, which might obtain facilities 
for receiving succours from Athens. He also induced the Patrseans to 
lengthen their walls in like manner, and for similar purposes. When 
these citizens were told that the Athenians would devour them at last, 
he replied that such a result was possible, but that at least they would 
do it gently, and by degrees, beginning with the feet, while the Lace- 
daemonians would begin at the head, and instantly destroy them. 
Such was, indeed, a just representation of that choice of evils which the 
two contending powers of Greece left to the states, who were forced to 
seek one or the other to become their ally and master. 

Alcibiades was vehement in his exertions in the Athenian cause. 
But in the midst of his schemes of policy, and his exploits in the field, 
he was unable to repress his love of pleasure, which betrayed him into 
constant violations of public decorum. He was perfectly careless of 
the opinion which might be formed of his excesses, and even ostenta- 
tiously proclaimed them. His insolent expression of disdain knew no 
bounds towards any who dared to oppose him. When a citizen named 
Taureas presumed to exhibit a spectacle in opposition to him, he 
descended to strike his rival. He forcibly detained Agatharcus, a 
painter, till he had executed the work he thought fit to prescribe, and 
then suffered him to depart, with a liberal remuneration for his labour. 
On one occasion, when he had obtained great applause by a public 
oration, Timon, the misanthrope, took him by the hand, and exhorting 
him to proceed, wished him increasing fame from the people, as he 
would soon repay them with abundant sorrow. 

A new field for the ambition of Alcibiades was now opened, with 
the design of conquering Sicily. The Egesteans had entreated succours 

from Athens against the Seli- 
nuntians and Syracusans, and 
ambassadors, sent to ascertain 
their resources, had brought 
the most splendid reports of 
the treasures deposited in their 
temples. Fresh and glittering 
hopes dawned upon the people, 
as they contemplated in ima- 
gination the conquest of the 
whole of the rich and fertile island, which already they fancied an 
Athenian colony. This prospect was, indeed, contracted, when com- 




ALCIBIADES. 



299 



pared with that which Alcibiades saw ; for he looked on the subjuga- 
tion of Sicily only as a means of accomplishing vaster designs, and 
considered it as leading to the possession of Italy, Carthage, and 
Libya, the opening of an almost unlimited succession of victories. The 
Athenian youth caught his enthusiasm • and thought of nothing but the 
triumphs in which they panted to share. Groups might be seen in the 
public places of exercise listening to the aged men discoursing on the 
old glories of the heroic times, or describing in the sand, the figures of 
those regions whose spoils they hoped soon to enjoy. The more wise 
and prudent, indeed, saw in these wild expectations the ruin of the 
Athenian grandeur. Socrates protested against the enterprise, by the 
advice, it was alleged, of his mysterious daemon. Meton, the astrologer, 
foresaw the ill fortune of the war, and set fire to his house, either by 
way of counterfeiting madness, or that he might persuade the people 
to allow his son to remain with him at Athens after a calamity which 
appeared so distressing. Nicias, with the calm wisdom which marked 
his character, laboriously endeavoured to dissuade the senate from their 
purpose. But all warnings were given in vain. A decree was passed, 
that a fleet of sixty ships should sail for Sicily, under the command of 
Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus, who were directed to succour the 
Egisteans, if possible to restore the Leontines to their places of abode, 
and further to act in all things as, according to their discretion, should 
tend to the benefit of Athens. When the time came for discussing 
the supplies for the expedition, Nicias solemnly entreated his country- 
men to pause, and, rinding the persuasive and brilliant eloquence 
of Alcibiades prevented his arguments from having any influence on his 
hearers, strove to deter them from their purpose by setting forth the 
vastness of the supplies, both of forces and of money, which it would be 
necessary for them to provide. But this speech produced an effect the 
most contrary to his wishes ; for the assembly were instantly convinced 
— not that their expedition must be abandoned — but that every nerve 
must be strained to support it ; and they accordingly came to a decision, 
investing the generals with full powers to regulate the numbers of the 
army and the fleet, and all that they might regard as requisite for their 
success. The zeal of the assembly was answered by the enthusiasm of 
the people. All were eager to share in an expedition so promising ; 
and a feeling of the most elevated hope pervaded all classes, as they 
witnessed the mighty preparations advancing. 

Alcibiades now seemed to have obtained the means of realizing the Accusations 
most gorgeous creations of his fancy. But, at this very moment, a 
sudden disaster blasted all his hopes. When the fleet was almost pre- 
pared, the statues of Hermes, which were numerous both in the temples 
and porticoes of houses, were defaced in a single night, by some 
unknown hand. 

This circumstance, although attributed by some to the Corinthians, 
who might be supposed thus to attempt to deter the Athenians from 
invading Syracuse, their colony, was regarded with alarm either as a 



300 



ALC1BIADES. 



result of some conspiracy against the republic, or as a supernatural 
indication of the wrath of heaven. The enemies of Alcibiades, through 
the means of Androcles, sought to direct the general feelings of horror 
against him, by accusing him of having been the author of the atrocious 
sacrilege. They also affirmed that he had, with some wanton associates, 
derided the holy mysteries by a profane representation of their forms, 
in which the guilty parties acted the various consecrated officers. The 
accusers also referred to the whole tenor of his life, which they not only 
stigmatised as licentious, but as indicating a spirit which would not be 
satisfied till it had usurped the supreme power to the destruction of 
public freedom. 




AlcihiadSs 
forced to 
depart 
without a 
trial. 



Course of the 
armament. 



When Alcibiades heard these charges he insisted on being allowed 
an immediate trial. He implored the Athenians not to suffer him to 
depart, as commander of so vast an expedition, with a charge of so 
great magnitude impending over him, or, while he was at a distance, 
to attend to calumnies which he could not answer. But his enemies, 
knowing the love which the soldiers bore him, and the partiality with 
which he was still regarded by many of the citizens, procured orators 
who urged that the voyage should not be delayed, but that, on the 
return of the commander, a day should be appointed for his trial. This 
advice was taken ; the investigation suspended ; and Alcibiades com- 
pelled to depart, leaving his accusers to collect or suborn, without 
opposition, a mass of evidence against him. 

The Athenian fleet sailed first to Corcyra, where it was joined by 
the ships of those allies who had consented to share in the glories and 



ALCIBIADES. 



301 



perils of the enterprise. Hence the commanders steered along the 
coast of Italy, and, being refused admittance or supplies by the mari- 
time towns, anchored beneath the promontory of Rhegium. Hence 
they despatched vessels to Egesta, to ascertain the amount of the pro- 
mised treasures in that city, and found, by the intelligence thus 
obtained, that no such resources existed. On this, the generals were 
divided in opinion ; but the advice of Alcibiades prevailed, to persuade 
the states, excepting Selinus and Syracuse, to join them, and after- 
wards to attack those against which they were sent, if they refused 
compliance to the demands of Athens. The Messenians having 
refused the offer of an alliance, the fleet sailed for Catana, where 
Alcibiades persuaded the citizens to join them. Here a message was 
received from Camarina, promising to unite in the Athenian cause, 
which induced the commanders to sail for that port ; but, finding on 
their arrival, that the Camarineans evaded the performance of their 
engagement, they returned to Catana, after a descent on the shores of 
the Sp'acusan territory, by winch they acquired spoils. On their 
arrival, they found a messenger, with a vessel called the Salaminian Eecaii of 
galley, to order Alcibiades to return and take his trial, on the charges Alcibiad5s - 
made before his departure. 

It does not appeal" that any clear proof had been discovered against cause of it. 
the party accused during his absence. But his enemies were able to 
pursue their machinations without fear of the army, who were 
devoted to him, or of the Argives and Mantinseans, who had joined the 
expedition solely from their desire to share his fortunes. Various 
rumours were studiously circulated against him, till the Athenians be- 
came too impatient for the decision of his fate to wait the issue of his 
mission. As, however, they wished the allies who were fixed in his 
interest to remain in the service, they directed their messengers not to 
arrest him, but merely to require him to follow them in his own 
galley. He accordingly yielded an apparent obedience to the requi- 
sition, and left the fleet in his vessel, with such of his comrades as 
were accused of having participated in his crimes. But when the 
Salaminian ship had passed the height of Thuria, he contrived to escape, Escape of 
so that all the endeavours of the officers to retake him were in vain. Alcibiades. 
Being met, when on shore, by one who knew him, and asked whether 
he did not dare trust his country, he replied, " Yes, with all but my 
life ; and when that is at stake, I would not trust my mother, lest she 
should mistake a black bean for a white one." When his flight was 
known at Athens, judgment of death was passed on him, his estate 
confiscated, and priests and priestesses ordered solemnly to pronounce 
him accursed. One of them, however, Theano, of Agraulos, declined 
to execute the order, observing that her office made it her duty to put 
up prayers, not execrations. When Alcibiades was informed that he 
was condemned to die by the Athenians, he replied, " I will make 
them feel that I am yet alive." 

Alcibiades now sought, not only security, but vengeance. He fled 



302 



ALCIBIADES. 



Alcibiades 
repairs to 
Sparta. 



Assumes the 
Spartan 



Makes 
enemies at 
Sparta. 



Takes refuge 
with Tissa- 
phernes. 

Conduct of 
Alcibiades 
while 
protected 
by Tissa- 
phernes. 



fi'om Tburia to C\~belene, and requested permission of the Lacedae- 
monians to enter their city, engaging to repair the injuries he had done 
them by his services. This request being granted, he hastened to 
Sparta, where he found the Syracusans and Corinthians imploring the 
people to send military succours to Sicily. This demand the Ephori 
were on the point of rejecting, and of determining to send only am- 
bassadors to Syracuse, who might prevent the Athenians from suc- 
ceeding, by negotiation, to obtain a footing in the island. But 
Alcibiades urged the necessity of sending real aid, in a speech so 
lucid, animated, and convincing, that they determined to send 
Gylippus, with the Corinthians, to oppose Nicias and Lamachus, then 
commanding the forces of Athens. By his advice, also, the Lacedae- 
monians fortified Decelea, and resolved to attack their foes in domestic 
war. Their affairs seemed instantly to revive, as by magic, at the 
first influence of his councils. 

Alcibiades, now apparently identified with the Spartan cause, 
assumed with marvellous facility the character of his new associates. 
Accustomed to every luxury, he fed on the coarsest food ; changed 
his dress from robes of purple and gold, to the simplest apparel ; and 
laying aside the gorgeous insolence of his appearance and manner, 
seemed at once to have become humble, patient, and laborious. The 
transformation, so wonderfully wrought, was, however, only external. 
He found means to seduce the wife of Agis, the king, not, as he 
alleged, from the heat of passion, but from ambition that his race 
should sit on the throne of Sparta. The discovery, however, by the 
monarch of the infidelity of his queen frustrated the hopes he had 
thus indulged, and raised up most powerful foes against him in his 
new asylum. The hatred of these men increased in proportion as 
those successes advanced of which his advice had been the origin. 
The calamities of the Athenians in Sicily, to which his counsel had 
greatly contributed, only increased their envy. He still, however, had 
sufficient influence to procure assistance for the inhabitants of Chios, 
in preference to those of Cyzicum and Lesbos, who all signified their 
desire of leaving the alliance of Athens. He soon set sail for Ionia, 
nearly the whole of which he induced to adopt the Spartan cause. 
But, while he was thus employed, Agis and his enemies sent private 
orders into that region to despatch him, which he discovered and was 
able to evade. He considered it, however, necessary to withdraw, 
and, renouncing the Spartan cause in disgust, sought and obtained the 
protection of Tissaphernes, the lieutenant of the Persian sovereignty. 

The manners of Alcibiades were adapted, with peculiar felicity, to 
win the favour of his new patron. The natural love of luxury and 
magnificence of disposition, which he had been forced to conceal at 
Sparta, he now indulged with perfect freedom, with the assurance that 
they must be grateful to the barbaric satrap. His talent for political 
intrigue had ample room for its exertions. As both the parties, 
weakened by their long struggle, anxiously looked to Tissaphernes for 



ALCIBIADES. 



303 



aid, he saw the means of rendering himself once more important to all 
the parties of Greece. As the Peloponnesians had now the decided 
advantage, from the miscarriage of the Athenian affairs in Sicily, he 
advised his Persian friend to lessen his assistance, reduce the pay of 
the soldiers, and not suffer them to obtain any decisive triumph. He 
urged that it was the interest of the Asiatic monarch to assist the 
Grecian states, only that they might weaken each other, so that both 
might at last be deprived of all means of resistance to his power. 
This counsel was peculiarly agreeable to the crafty barbarian, who 
suffered Alcibiades to direct all his movements, and gave the most 
public indications of the control which he allowed him to enjoy. But 
Alcibiades was, in the midst of his oriental splendours, working out, Alcibiades 
from his interest with Tissaphernes, the means of his recall to Athens, ^"eturn ) 
At this moment, indeed, it was in the power of this officer to give a Athens, 
finishing blow to that ill-fated republic, by bringing up the Phoenician 
fleet, which consisted of 150 ships, to the aid of the Spartans. This, 
then, was a most fortunate time for the intrigues of Alcibiades, who, 
by his open influence, seemed to have this illustrious state at his 
mercy. He caused it, therefore, to be insinuated among the com- 
manders of the Athenian troops which were then at Samos, that their 
only hope lay in his return, for which the way must be prepared by 
rendering the government of the state oligarchical instead of popular. 
The chiefs at Samos being generally inclined to favour such a revolu- 
tion not only freely discussed the proposal among themselves, but 
caused it to be intimated at Athens. Phrynicus alone opposed it ; 
and when he found that he could not prevail by argument, attempted 
to succeed by stratagem. He endeavoured, therefore, by private 
messengers, to incite Astyochus, commander of the Lacedaemonian 
fleet, against Alcibiades, who, instead of assisting in his downfal, 
revealed to him the communication which was intended to destroy 
him. On this Alcibiades sent to Samos, and accused Phrynicus of 
treachery ; when that officer, becoming desperate on the discovery of 
his scheme, offered to Astyochus to deliver into his hand the army and 
fleet of the Athenians, if he would, even now, favour his designs. 
This proposal, like the former, was disclosed to its intended victim, 
and was communicated by him to his confederates at Samos, by whom 
a deputation, with Pisander at its head, was sent to Athens, charged 
with the propositions of establishing an oligarchy and recalling the 
celebrated exile. At first the people were exceedingly irritated by the 
attempt to deprive them of their rights ; but, on being persuaded 
that there was no other means of obtaining the friendship of Persia, 
and consequently averting destruction from the state, they gave their 
consent, and empowered Pisander to return to Alcibiades, with 
powers to agree to his proposals. He was now, however, unable to 
persuade Tissaphernes to throw all his power into the scale of the 
Athenians, and abandon the line of policy which he had adopted 
with his advice, of holding the balance till each party was exhausted. 



304 



ALCIBIADES. 



Alcibiades, therefore, unable to fulfil his engagements, considered only 
how he should best conceal the decline of that influence on which he 
had presumed to make them. He accordingly made requisitions, with 
which it was impossible for the deputation to comply, and suffered all 
negotiations to be suspended, 
^volution But Pisander and his associates, although their hope of obtaining 
the assistance of Persia was lost, resolved not to abandon the intention 
of changing the constitution of Athens. They determined no longer 
to depend on Alcibiades, but to send part of the former deputation 
home, there to effect their purposes. While Diotrephes established 
an oligarchy at Thasus, Pisander sailed for Athens, overturning the 
popular establishments in all the dependent states at which he could 
touch by the way, and procuring aid to support him in his main 
design. On his arrival in the city he found that his confederates 
there had been successfully engaged in preparing the minds of the 
citizens for the intended change. They had proposed that the affairs 
of the state should be committed to the wisdom of no less a number 
than five thousand ; and thus engaged on their side such men as, 
from their influence and wealth, might expect to be enrolled among 
the privileged number. The power thus acquired by the aristocratical 
faction was directed by great talents in its leaders. Of these, Antipho, 
Phrynicus, and Theramenes, were the most distinguished, and all were 
endowed with great ability, either for intrigue or persuasion. No- 
thing was further from the view of these men than the accomplish- 
ment of their professions, in dividing the power to which they aspired 
among five thousand citizens. Having masked their real plans till 
they had ascertained their strength, they determined to proceed with 
a rapidity and boldness which might strike terror into the hearts of 
the people. They therefore moved that a committee of ten should 
be entrusted with preparing a decree — summoned the people — and 
proposed the removal of all existing authorities, and the choice of 
five presidents, who should select a hundred associates, and each of 
these thus chosen should further elect three more to share in the 
legislative power. The audience heard these propositions with silent 
amazement, and suffered them to be adopted without discussion. No 
sooner was the decree passed than the four hundred took possession of 
the senate-house, expelled all the former magistrates, and entered peace- 
ably on the administration of all the public affairs of the astonished 
and despairing citizens. 
Alcibiades' While the oligarchical party were thus triumphant at Athens, they 
Th'ra ^ifuiiS' were defeated at Samos by Thrasybulus and his soldiers. That noble- 
to Samos. minded patriot resolved never to rest until he had restored his country 
to her freedom. This, however, he believed could not be effected 
without recalling Alcibiades from exile. He went, therefore, to 
Tissap hemes, conferred with Alcibiades, and conducted him to the 
forces at Samos. There this ever-varying politician, who so recently 
had intrigued with the aristocracy, united with their bitterest foes, 



ALCIBIADE3. 



305 



and promised to them, as he had done to their antagonists, the friend- 
ship of Tissaphernes if thev should succeed and recal him to share in 
their triumph. The soldiers, burning to destroy the tyranny of the 
four hundred, proposed to leave the Peloponnesians, to whom they 
were opposed, and sail at once for the Piraeus. From this rash design 
they were wiselv dissuaded bv Alcibiades, who urged the necessity of 
more temperate measures, and was even ready to assent to a com- 
promise with the oligarchy, on the terms that the five thousand should 
be actually as they were nominally invested with the government of 
the state. In the mean time Athens was reduced to the most 
wretched condition by domestic factions. Dissension now raged even 
in the ranks of the four hundred; many of whom, terrified by the 
approach of danger, were anxious for the adoption of the plan with 
which Alcibiades was willing; to agree. A naval defeat bv the 
Lacedaemonians completed the misery which had for a long time 
appeared every hour to deepen. This dreadful blow was, however, 
the means of suspending for a time the intestine contests by which 
the city was distracted. An assembly was held, in which the four second 
hundred were deposed, and the government vested in five thousand, anTlecaTof 
comprehending all the citizens who were enrolled for the heavy Alcibiades 
armour. All parties having agreed in giving their utmost efforts to t0 Athens> 
raise their country from her melancholy humiliation, despatched a 
deputation to Alcibiades and the army at Samos, exhorting them to 
use their most strenuous exertions for the public benefit. 

Alcibiades, although thus recalled, resolved to delay his return Exploits of 
until he had performed such exploits as might throw fresh lustre over JJjJjJjJj, 
his name, and endear him to all classes of his fellow-citizens. With his return, 
this ambition he sailed with a small squadron from Samos, and having 
gained information that Mindaras, with the Peloponnesian fleet, had 
gone in pursuit of the Athenian navy, he hastened to afford his 
countrymen succour. Happily he arrived at the scene of action, near 
Abydos, at a most critical moment ; when, after a severe engagement, 
the Spartans had on one side obtained an advantage, and were pur- 
suing the broken lines of the Athenians. While both parties regarded 
his ships as come to aid the Lacedsemonians, he displaved the Athe- Naval 
nian flag, and attacked the Peloponnesians with the fiercest energy. victor >"- 
He speedily decided the fortune of the day, completely routed the 
Spartans, till then victorious, broke many of their ships in pieces, and 
took thirty from them; recovering all they had previously taken, 
and destroying their armament on the coasts, notwithstanding the 
opposition of Pharnabazus, who, from the shore, attempted to shield 
the fugitives. His vanity after this signal success had, however, 
nearly destroyed him; for, being desirous of appearing to Tissa- 
phernes as a conqueror instead of a fugitive, he hastened with a 
splendid retinue to visit him, when the crafty barbarian, thinking he 
should thus appease the suspicions of the Spartans, caused him to be 
arrested and confined in prison at Sardis. Hence, however, he found 
[h. g.] x 



306 



ALCIB1ADES. 



inn prison- means to escape, and having procured a horse, fled to Clazomene, 
ambpear where he rewarded the treachery of his Persian friend by affirming 
Aicibiades. that he had connived at his flight, and thus destroying the credit with 
the Lacedaemonians which the arrest was designed to secure. Hence 
he sailed immediately for the Athenian camp to diffuse fresh animation 
among the soldiers, and induce them hastily to embark on an expe- 
dition against Mindarus and Pharnabazus, who were then with the 
residue of the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicum. As soon as he dis- 
Second naval covered the enemies' vessels, he ordered a number of his commanders 
victory. tQ s i ac k en sa ii s? w hile he advanced with only forty ships, that the 
Spartans, who might otherwise have fled, should be incited to give 
him battle. The artifice succeeded : Mindarus hastened to attack the 
Athenians, believing their force so inferior that he should find them 
an easy prey, and soon found himself encountered by fresh succours, 
which he was unable to resist. Terrified at so unexpected a check, 
his forces took flight in confusion, were pursued to the shore by the 
victorious commander, and there put to the sword in great numbers. 
Pharnabazus and Mindarus, who there attempted to rally them, tvere 
defeated ; the latter fell in the contest, and the former only found 
safety by precipitately retreating. Aicibiades pursued his victory, 
took Cyzicum without difficulty, and, staining his conquest with a 
cruelty with which he was not generally chargeable, put to death all 
the Peloponnesians whom he found within the city, 
victory over A very short space of time elapsed after this brilliant success before 
piiamabazus. ^AJcfoiades found another occasion to deserve the gratitude of Athens. 

Discovering that Pharnabazus had fallen with great force, both of 
infantry and horsemen, on the troops under the command of Thra- 
syllus, as they were laying waste the territory of the Abydenians, he 
hastened to assist them with his army, and, in conjunction with them, 
defeated their enemies, and continued a triumphant pursuit till night 
protected the fugitives. He then gathered spoil from the province of 
Pharnabazus ; but while he scattered devastation through the region, he 
displayed a feeling of respect for the sanctities of religion, by releas- 
ing, without ransom, all who assisted in the ceremonials of worship. 
He next prepared to reduce the inferior cities, which, in the hour of 
distress, had revolted from the Athenian cause. For this purpose he 
Victory at marched against the Chalcedonians, and finding they had removed their 
chakedon. catt l e and grain, and placed them under the protection of their allies, 
the people of Bithynia, he sent to accuse the latter of thus assisting 
his foes. Upon this, terrified with the idea of his military prowess, 
they delivered up the deposited spoil, and sued for and obtained his 
alliance. He then returned to his original design, and invested Chal- 
cedon, by drawing his army round and enclosing it with a wall, to 
prevent it from receiving provisions. Pharnabazus soon advanced to 
its relief, and, at the same time, the besieged citizens made a sally ; 
but Aicibiades despatched troops with great promptitude against both 
parties, completely succeeded on all points, slew Hippocrates, the 



ALCIBIADES. 



307 



governor of the city, and compelled Pharnabazus once more to fly. 
While he sailed up the Hellespont to levy contributions, the com- 
mander, whom he left to prosecute the siege, made a treaty with 
Pharnabazus, by which, on their engaging to refrain from invading the 
province, he not only agreed to pay them a sum of money as the 
price of accommodation, but suffered the Chalcedonians to return to 
the alliance of Athens, and promised to give the Athenian envoys 
safe conduct to the Persian sovereign. Next, Alcibiades proceeded to Danger and 
reduce the city of Selymbria, which a number of his friends engaged to AitiXdss a 
deliver into his hands. The signal agreed on for his entry was, a Selymbria. 
flaming torch, which the conspirators were, in the middle of the night, 
to exhibit on the walls. One of them, however, wavering, the rest 
were compelled, through fear of a discovery, to light the torch before 
the preparations were completed. Alcibiades observing the flame, 
hurried on with only fifty men, as his army were not ready to join 
him, and entered the city, having commanded the rest to follow with 
all possible speed. Here, however, he was placed in the most 
imminent danger. He perceived the citizens advancing from the 
fortresses in numbers which he could not hope successfully to en- 
counter ; and while he felt that in a combat he must be destroyed, 
his proud spirit, which had never yet known a check in battle, for- 
bade him to retire. From this situation his ever-prompt invention 
saved him without any blemish to his military fame. He paused — 
ordered a herald to proclaim that the Selymbrians should not treat the 
Athenians as foes, and thus at once cooled the ardour of the citizens 
for the fight, and gave time for his whole army to enter. When he 
found himself thus supported, he granted peace on liberal terms, 
requiring only from them a sum of money, and leaving an Athenian 
garrison to secure the place from the Spartans. 

Byzantium having revolted from the Athenians, was the city Alcibiades 
against which his efforts were next directed. He drew his forces « kes 

j jiii • . , • • i . „ Byzantium. 

round it, and held communications with parties within its walls, 
among whom were Anaxilaus and Lycurgus, to deliver up the place 
to him on his engaging to spare the lives and fortunes of the citizens. 
As soon as the arrangements for this purpose were completed, 
he spread a rumour that he was called suddenly into Ionia to 
appease commotions there, and departed with the fleet : it was only to 
remain in ambush within a short distance from the harbour. As soon 
as night concealed his operations, he returned, disembarked great part 
of his troops in silence, and ordered the vessels with those who were 
left on board to be rowed swiftly into the port, with terrible outcries, 
as if a mighty naval force were destroying the shipping, and hastening 
to attack the town from the shores. In the mean time his confede- 
rates quietly admitted him with his troops into the city, which, how- 
ever, he did not win without a struggle ; for his ships were repulsed 
from the shore by the hostile forces, who, after compelling the soldiers 
to return to their vessels, drew up in good order to oppose the pro- 

x 2 



308 



ALCIBIADES. 



gress of their more formidable enemy. A regular and well-contested 
battle then ensued, in which the Athenians obtained the victory, and 
took three hundred prisoners. Notwithstanding this unexpected 
opposition, Alcibiades strictly fulfilled the conditions on which he had 
been admitted, and would not allow the least outrage either on the 
persons or fortunes of the citizens. When Anaxilaus was accused at 
Sparta, with the rest of his confederates, of his treachery, he boldly 
avowed that he had felt and acted as a Byzantine, not as a Lacede- 
monian ; that he saw no possibility of relief for the city while the 
Peloponnesian army consumed the provisions and his countrymen 
were left to starve ; that he had acted on the simple principle of the 
duty of serving his country in preference to all other obligations, and 
had thus only been actuated by a feeling which the Spartans them- 
selves gloried in cultivating. This defence so pleased the Lacedae- 
monians, not from its reference to general humanity, but its application 
of that exclusive patriotism which they openly preferred to fidelity or 
justice, that they absolved all who had been charged with consenting 
to the proposal of surrender. 
AlcibiadSs Alcibiades having raised the fortunes of his country from the 
Athens t0 lowest state of depression, not only by his brilliant victories, but his 
conciliating policy, prepared to return and enjoy the praise of his suc- 
cesses. He entered the Piraeus in a galley adorned with the spoils of 
numerous victories, followed by a long line of ships which he had 
taken from the foe, and attended by vessels bearing the ensigns of a 
greater number which he had destroyed, exhibiting the proofs of 
having deprived the enemy of two hundred ships, and restored the 
dear and long-lost maritime glories of Athens. But when he 
approached with his glorious retinue, his heart sunk within him, from 
the remembrance of the wrongs he had endured, and, perhaps, with 
some sad presage of the disasters he was yet to suffer. He did not 
venture to land till he saw his nephew and old companions stretching 
out their arms to him, and inviting him earnestly to meet them. His 
first reception, however, was as genial and flattering as his fondest 
hope or loftiest ambition could require. The whole city came down 
to the harbour to see and welcome him, and took no notice of 
Thrasybulus or Theramenes, his fellow-commanders. Throngs 
pressed around him with acclamations and blessings ; those who 
could not touch, threw garlands upon him; and the aged, who 
remembered the former glories and recent humiliations of their 
country, pointed him out to the young from afar, with tears of 
mingled sorrow and joy. While the people, with fond regret, attri- 
buted to his exile their disasters in Sicily, and all their subsequent 
miseries, they hailed him now as one who had again made them 
taste of victory, and who would become their second founder. An 
assembly of the people being convened, he addressed them in a gentle 
and modest speech, imputing his calamities not to their envy, but to 
some evil genius which pursued him. He exhorted them to take 



ALCIBIADES. 



309 



courage, bade them oppose their enemies with all the fresh inspiration 
of their zeal, and taught them to hope for happier days. Delighted 
with these assurances, they presented him with a crown of brass and 
gold, which never was before given to any but the Olympic victors, 
invested him with absolute control over their naval and military 
affairs, restored to him his confiscated wealth, and ordered the 
ministers of religion to absolve him from the curses which they had 
denounced against him. Theodoras, however, the high-priest, evaded 
the last part of the decree, by alleging that he had never cast any 
imprecation on him, if he had committed no offence against the 
republic. The tablets on which the curses against him had been 
inscribed were taken to the shore, and thrown with eagerness into 
the sea. 

His next measure heightened, if possible, the brief lustre of his 
triumph. In consequence of the fortification of Decelea by the Lace- Alcibiades 
daemonians, and their having possession of the passes of the country, procession to 
the procession to Eleusis, in honour of Athene, had been long unable Eleusis. 
to take its usual course, and being conducted by sea, had lost 
many of its solemn and august ceremonials. He now, therefore, 
offered to conduct the solemnity by land, after the ancient custom, 
under the protection of his troops, thinking that if the Spartans 
should suffer him to pass unimpeded, he should add to his renown ; 
and if they should attack him, he should fight in the cause of religion, 
and in the immediate view of his country. His proposal being 
gladly accepted, he placed sentinels on the hills ; and, surrounding 
the consecrated band with his soldiers, conducted the whole to 
Eleusis and back to Athens, without the slightest opposition, or 
breach of that order and profound stillness which he had exhorted 
the troops to maintain. After this graceful act of homage to the 
religion he was once accused of destroying, he was regarded by the 
common people as something more than human ; they looked on him 
as destined never to know defeat, and believed their triumph was 
certain so long as he was their commander. 

But, in the very height of his popularity, causes of a second exile 
w^ere maturing. The great envied him in proportion to the people's 
confidence, and that confidence itself became the means of his ruin : Cause of 
for, as the people really thought the spell of invincibility was upon e xiieo C f° nd 
him, they were prepared to attribute the least pause in his career of Alcibiades. 
glory to a treacherous design. He departed with a hundred vessels, 
manned under his inspection, with colleagues of his own choice, to 
reduce the isle of Chios to obedience. At Andros he once more 
gained a victory over both the natives and the Spartans, who at- 
tempted to assist them. But, on his arrival at the chief scene of 
action, he found that he would be unable to keep the soldiers from 
deserting, unless he could raise money to pay them sums more nearly 
equal to those which the Lacedaemonians ofiered, than the pay he was 
able to bestow. He was compelled, therefore, to leave the fleet and 



310 



ALCIBIADES. 



Alcibiades 
compelled 
to leave the 
fleet, which 
is defeated. 



Offers battle 
to Lysander 



Charges 
against him 
at Athens. 



Is superseded 
and goes into 
Thrace. 



Attempts 
still to 
serve the 
Athenians, 
but in vain. 



go into Caria in order to obtain supplies. While absent on this 
occasion, he left Antiochus in the command, who, though well fitted 
from his experience in maritime affairs to preserve order, was too 
rash to be a fit judge of the proper time for battle. To this officer 
Alcibiades gave express directions that he should refrain from coming 
to an engagement, whatever provocations he might receive. Anxious, 
however, to display his bravery, Antiochus took the first occasion to 
sail out in front of the Lacedaemonian fleet, which lay near Ephesus, 
under the command of Lysander, and attempt, by insults, to incite 
them to attack him. Lysander accordingly pursued him ; the fleets 
came to the support of their respective admirals, and a general 
engagement ensued, in which Antiochus was slain, and the Athenians 
completely defeated. 

On receiving intelligence of this unhappy reverse, Alcibiades hastened 
to the fleet, and eager to repair the misfortune, offered battle to the 
Spartans ; Lysander, however, did not choose to risk the loss of his ad- 
vantage by accepting the challenge, and the Athenians were compelled 
to retire. This event, for which no blame really attached to Alcibiades, 
completed the ruin of his influence at Athens. It was believed that 
this, the first instance of his failure, must have arisen from corruption, 
or, at least, from a want of inclination to serve his country. He was 
also accused of leaving the navy under the direction of those who had 
no other recommendation to the charge but having been sharers in his 
luxurious banquets, and of having wandered about to indulge in profli- 
gate excesses, while the fleet of the enemy lay in sight of that of which 
he should have been the commander. It was likewise asserted that he 
had fortified a castle in Thrace, to serve as a retreat when his treacheries 
should have rendered it impossible for him to continue in safety at 
Athens. On these grounds, the people in his absence took from him his 
command, and confided it to other generals. As soon as he heard of this 
new act of ingratitude, he resolved not to return home, but withdrew 
into Thrace, and fortified three castles, Bornos, Byzia, and Machronti- 
chos, near to Perinthus. Here, having collected a formidable band, as an 
independent captain he made incursions on the territories of those of 
the Thracians who acknowledged no settled form of government, and 
acquired considerable spoils. But he did not resign his love for his ill- 
fated country, nor refrain from exertions to succour the Athenians. The 
fleet which he had lately commanded lay in the river iEgos, and that of 
the Spartans under Lysander, was anchored at a short distance. He per- 
ceived that the captains of the former were accustomed to sail out in 
the morning, and insolently offer battle to the foe, and then return and 
spend the day in a state of tumultuous disorder. He feared lest 
Lysander should either protract the war till the small remains of the 
money by which the forces of Athens were supported were spent, or 
that he would improve one of the opportunities they so constantly 
afforded, of falling on them in a state of security and confusion. At 
the same time he hoped, as the Lacedaemonian strength lay more on 



ALCIBIADES, 



311 



land than in their vessels, that he should be able, by the aid of the king 
of Thrace, to drive them from the shore, and compel them either to 
fight under great disadvantages, or to sue for peace. With these views 
he went to the Athenian camp, communicated his wishes, and warned 
the generals of then danger. They, however treated his person and 
his councils with a fatal disdain, which compelled him to retire with- 
out performing his proffered services. Too soon they felt the justice 
of his warnings. Lvsander fell on them, when they were wholly tin- Athenian 
prepared to receive him. with such violence and success, that he destroyed jjjjj* Jjjjjj* 
the whole fleet, with the exception of six galleys, which escaped with taken. 
Conon. This blow put an end to the long and ruinous contest. Athens 
had neither means nor sphit left to resist her foes. Lvsander proceeded 
from this victory to the capture of Athens ; burnt the shipping which 
lay in the harbour ; razed the long walls to their foundations ; and im- 
posed thirty tyrants on the state which had been the cradle, and was 
now the sepulchre of Grecian freedom. 

Alcibiades was now the sole object of hope to which the minds of his Alcibiades 
misguided couritrymen were directed. They still had some confidence in ^ s ^ ted 
his love for the country which had twice rewarded him with disgraceful Spartans, 
exile, and could scarcely believe, that while he lived the cause of freedom 
was desperate. In the estimate of his undying patriotism their Lace- 
daemonian oppressors unhappily coincided, and felt that his death alone 
could secure their mastery over Athens. The feehngs of both parties Alcibiades 
respecting him were well founded. Although he had been received t0 
with great cordiality by Pharnabazus, whose protection he had sought, king of 
and had been assigned a territory, from which he derived a considerable Persia - 
revenue, he was unable to enjoy a luxurious repose while his country 
groaned beneath intolerable oppressions. He saw the only hope of 
effecting its deliverance rested in procuring the aid of the king of 
Persia. This he did not despair of obtaining, especially as he perceived, 
with his usual political sagacity, that Cyras, brother of the reigning 
sovereign, was about to make war against him, with the assistance of 
the Spartans. If he could disclose this to the monarch, he believed 
that he should not only lay him under obligation, which must conciliate 
his favour, but induce him. for his own security, to assist the Athenian 
cause against those who would soon appear as his own enemies. He, 
therefore, entreated Pharnabazus to sutler him to proceed to the king, 
with the design, like Tkemistocles, of offering his services : yet for the 
purpose of raising not of destroying the state which had driven him 
from his efforts to avert its downfal. 

But before he could execute his patriotic design, Lvsander, incited Death of 
by the representations of Critias and the other tyrants, whom he had Alcibiad «- 
placed over Athens, entreated Pharnabazus to destroy him. He 
threatened that unless Alcibiades were delivered up, alive or dead, the 
Lacedaemonians would break off their alliance with his master. This 
threat induced the satrap to take immediate measures for destroying 
the fugitive whom he had protected. The victim of his treachery was, 



312 



ALCIBIADES. 



at this time, in Phrygia, with Timandra, his mistress, preparing for his 
journey to the capital. Thither Pharnabazus despatched Sysamithres 
and Bagoas to murder him. But when they arrived at the place of his 
residence they durst not approach him, but surrounded the house with 
their band, and set it on fire. On perceiving the danger, Alcibiades 
threw clothes on the flames, and, seizing a sword, rushed through the 
fire without injury. He was now perceived by the barbarian troop, 
who, from a distance, threw their darts at him till he fell lifeless. 
Timandra then wrapped her vestments about his body and burned it 
in the flames of the house, as on a funeral pile. The assassins retired, 
without interrupting her in this last sad office of affection to the mighty 
dead. 

character of Thus fell Alcibiades, having scarcely passed the fortieth year of a 
Alcibiades. mo st eventful life. Nature seemed to have lavished her bounties upon 
him. A noble origin — singular personal beauty — grace of manner- — 
immense patrimonial riches — eloquence the most persuasive — acuteness 
the most penetrating — bravery the most undaunted — Pericles for his 
guardian, and Socrates for his friend and adviser — all seemed to mark 
him out as destined for a happy and glorious career. Never, perhaps, 
was so fair a prospect dashed so early with clouds, and so soon over- 
spread with total gloom. Yet he can scarcely be said to have owed his 
ruin to the absolute preponderance of his vices. He possessed, through- 
out life, many virtues, to which even the plots of his adversaries bore 
witness. His love for his country, amidst all the injuries he received 
from her, was his ruling passion to the last. A second time an exile 
from her shores, after conferring numberless benefits on her, he died a 
martyr to his unshaken desire to effect her ransom. His public life — 
if we except the devious methods by which he sometimes proceeded to 
effect good designs, and his offer of advice to the Spartans after his first 
exile — was full of patriotism, forbearance, and wisdom. His great want 
was that of principle, and by that want he was undone. He acted from 
impulses which he had never learned to restrain. His love towards 
his country, though his strongest impulse, was essentially a personal 
feeling, and very different from a calm sense of duty or earnest desire 
for the general welfare. He had nothing within which could enable 
him to become master over himself, and direct his faculties by honour- 
able courses to noble ends. He often, indeed, adapted his manners 
with astonishing facility to those of his associates ; he was the most 
patient in Lacedsemon, the most robust at Thebes, the most jovial among 
the Thracians, and the most splendid and luxurious among the Persians ; 
but, in none of his changes, was he actuated by any principle either false 
or true, but simply by a desire to surpass his colleagues in all which 
they esteemed most noble or dazzling. There was no common centre 
round which his mighty powers and vehement impulses could revolve. 
He gratified all his feelings of insolence, luxury, or pride, without 
regard to times or seasons, except when some strong passion gave him 
a short-lived consistency of character. Never did any one, to whom in- 



ALCIBIADES. 



313 



terests so mightv were committed, suffer himself to be so often influenced Character 
by momentary fancies that destroyed the measures on which his dearest 
hopes were dependent. He was a partisan without revenge, and a 
victor without cruelty ; but these excellences availed him little, because 
he had not singleness of heart, nor directness of purpose, to render them 
effectual for his country's salvation. The constitution of his mind was 
oriental rather than Grecian. His personal character, and not that of 
his cause, predominated in all his actions. His sense of pleasure was 
too keen, and his pride too great, to allow of that absorption of himself 
into a state which alone could fit him for the subject, much less for the 
preserver of a republic. He could assume a thousand shapes, but in 
all he was an actor. The abstraction of spirit, which made an ancient 
patriot lose the sense of personal identity, as a public character, in the 
idea of forming a part in a great whole — which caused him to live only 
in the triumphs, and die with the fall of the body politic — was totally 
averse from his nature. He would have risked his life a thousand times 
for his native city, but he would never have rejoiced with the Spartan that 
it contained three hundred worthier than himself to govern. Hence he 
was unfitted to rouse the slumbering energies of a state in the cause of 
freedom. The bands which joined him were always actuated by regard 
to him as an individual, not by any general spirit inspired by his cause. 
His fortunes were strangely linked with those of a state, which, by 
casting him the first time from the summit of greatness, brought her- 
self to the verge of ruin ; and, after madly repeating the injustice, when 
his arm had raised her from the dust, sunk almost without a struggle. 
In his death, which she had once formally decreed, and at last remotely 
occasioned, she saw and felt her last hope expire. If he was not alto- 
gether worthy to be the preserver of the Athenian greatness, he merited 
the honour of casting the last rays of glory over it, and of having his 
fall for ever identified with its destruction. 



CHAPTER XII. 



RECAPITULATION OF THE HISTORY OF GREECE, FROM THE BATTLE 
OF MARATHON TO THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS. 

B. c. 490 to B. c. 404. 

In the lives of Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, and Alcibiades, we 
have taken occasion to describe, with considerable minuteness, those 
events which their genius directed, and which form a very large part 
of the brightest portion of Grecian history. We have now to supply 

THE OUTLINE BY WHICH THOSE INDIVIDUAL PICTURES WILL BE CON- 
NECTED ; passing lightly over those circumstances which have been 
described in connection with them, and dilating on those parts of 
national history which our plan has induced us hitherto to omit, or to 
which it has enabled us only briefly to allude. 
Preparations Xerxes, having succeeded Darius on the throne of Persia, resolved 
of Xerxes for ^ Q aven2 . e £ ne stain which had been thrown on the arms of his country, 

an invasion o J » 

of Greece. at Marathon. It is even probable that his views extended beyond the 
b. c. conquest of Greece, and that he regarded this extension of his dominions 

483-480. but as opening the way to the subjugation of regions still further to 
the westward, in which his young ambition anticipated a series of 
victories. Incited by the exiled party of the family of Peisistratus, he 
sent heralds to all the cities of Greece, demanding earth and water, in 
token of their submission, with the exception of Athens and Lacedse- 
mon, where the Persian envoys had, in the reign of Darius, been put 
to death. With this demand, many of the smaller states thought it 
prudent to comply. The mighty preparations of the great king pro- 
ceeded on a scale the most appalling. To a superficial observer the 
fate of Greece must have appeared to be absolutely decided. Even 
the small force which its united republics could have opposed to the 
invasion, was divided against itself ; many of the states had yielded ; 
JEgina had been at war with Athens ; the resolutions of Argos, Corcyra, 



BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE. 



315 



and Syracuse, were doubtful. Minds, however, were happily found B. c. 483. 1 
with energies equal to the danger. Themistocles had already provided 
Athens with a naval force, which effected, ultimately, the deliverance 
of Greece, and raised that state to the highest glory and power. (See 
AristTdes and Themistocles.) Peace was immediately concluded 
between iEgina and Athens ; but Crete and Argos declined uniting in 
the general cause. A meeting of deputies from the confederated states, 
to deliberate upon the best means of resistance, was summoned to 
assemble at Corinth. 

The stupendous forces of Xerxes (which we have described in a Army 
preceding chapter) now passed the Hellespont, and advanced to Thisaly, 
attack Thessaly. A body of infantry, under the command of Themis- hut retires, 
tocles and Evanaetus, was instantly sent to dispute the passes, which 
accordingly took its position in the vale of Tempe, between the 
mountains of Ossa and Olympus. Here they were joined by the 
Thessalian cavalry, and constituted a force adequate to the defence of 
the road between the natural fortresses by which the boundary was 
protected. But they were induced to retreat, by intelligence derived 
from Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedon, that there was 
another passage by which the Persians might enter Thessaly from 
Upper Macedonia ; and that unless they retired, they must be sur- 
rounded and cut to pieces. They left Thessaly, therefore, to the mercy 
of the invaders ; and the people of that region, thinking themselves 
forsaken by their allies, received the army of Xerxes with open arms, 
and exerted themselves to the utmost in his favour. 

The force of the Greeks was now concentrated within their narrow Defence of 
boundaries, which were defended almost in every part by the sea or Thermopylae 

mi r st^ r resolved on. 

the mountains, lne ridge of (Ma, extending from sea to sea across B< c# 4-SO. 
the southern limit of Thessaly, now become their frontier, was accessible 
only by one narrow road, scarcely wide enough to admit a chariot, and 
defended by a wall, and an inundation from the neighbouring hot baths, 
which gave it the name of Thermopylce, by which it has since been 
remembered with associations so deep and inspiring. Near this most 
advantageous position was a bay where the fleet could anchor in safety. 
Here, then, it was resolved by the confederates, that the first strenuous 
resistance should be made to the progress of the invader. 

But small, indeed, were the numbers which Greece could arouse to Forces of the 
assist in the cause of freedom. Most of the states which professed to Greeks - 
unite in the league, were either paralyzed by terror, or deterred by 
jealousies, from putting forth their utmost energies. Thebes contri- 
buted only four hundred, Corinth four hundred, and Sparta three 
hundred soldiers. The force of Athens was necessarily employed on 
board her fleet, so that the great body of the troops was composed of 
Locrians, Phocians, Arcadians, and the citizens of the smaller republics. Land forces 
These, with Leonidas, king of Lacedaemon, at their head, took their JjJjJJ e of 
station near the pass of Thermopylae, while the fleet was drawn up Thermopylae, 
at Artemisium, in order to assist them. But on the approach of ten 



316 



THE PERSIANS ATTACK DELPHI. 



e. c. 480. 



M ovements 
of the fleets. 



Advance of 
the Persian 
armies into 
Greece. 

Attack on 
Delphi. 



Attica 
abandoned. 



Persian galleys, sent to explore the seas, the fleet, after losing two 
vessels, retired, and anchored at Chalcis. On this retreat, the vast 
armament of Persia was greatly shattered by a violent tempest, and 
lost not less than four hundred galleys. Hearing of this disaster of 
their foes, the commander of the Grecian navy once more took post 
at Artemisium, from which he had ignobly departed. Soon after, 
fifteen hostile vessels, which had been separated from the rest by 
the storm, fell into their hands, having mistaken their fleet for a divi- 
sion of the Persians. This success served to awaken the energy of the 
Greeks from the state of despair in which it appeared to be expiring. 
Eeligion aided the love of liberty, and taught the Greeks to believe 
that heaven was with them. 

The transactions at Thermopylae have been fully detailed in our 
biography of Leonidas. We proceed to notice the events that imme- 
diately followed. 

The Persian armies having passed Thermopylae, over the bodies of 
their heroic foes, advanced without opposition into the country of the 
Dorians. They respected the property of the people of Doris, but 
ravaged Phocis with fire and sword, and advanced, scattering ruin 
everywhere along the banks of the Cephisus. While the main body 
proceeded to Attica, through the territories of the Boeotians, a detach- 
ment was sent to Delphi, to secure the rich treasures in the temple of 
Apollo. Herodotus informs us that, on the approach of this band 
towards the steeps on which the fane was erected, thunder from heaven 
struck them, masses of the rock fell on them with tremendous sounds, 
and the Delphians rushing from the caves, attacked them in their 
dismay, and put to flight all who survived the prodigies. It is pro- 
bable that this apparent miracle was the result of contrivance, which 
the situation of the temple was peculiarly calculated to favour. While 
its summits appeared to be deserted, troops might well be concealed 
among its deep woods, who could roll down fragments of the rock 
through the steeps, at once to break the lines of their foes, and strike 
them with supernatural horror. Storms of thunder must have been of 
frequent occurrence during the summer season. And with all the 
advantages of position, knowledge of the ground, and a religious panic 
in the Persians, the Delphians, though with numbers very inconsider- 
able, might have gained an easy victory. It was affirmed that two 
figures, more than human, appeared on this occasion to encourage the 
Greeks, who were supposed to be Phylacus and Autonous, old heroes 
of whom traditions existed in Delphi ; but this is an invention which 
naturally arose from circumstances which the friends of the oracle 
would desire to heighten. 

Meanwhile, fresh disunion arose among the Greeks. The Pelopon- 
nesians resolved to decline assisting in defence of Attica, and to draw 
their lines of defence across the isthmus, so as to confine their operations 
to their own regions. Although this resolution was as short-sighted 
and foolish as it was base, it threw the Athenians into a state of 



XERXES RETURNS TO ASIA. 



317 



great distress and confusion. Themistocles happily, in the manner b. c. 480. 
which we have stated in his life, made this apparent evil the means of 
triumph. By his address, his countrymen were induced to send their 
families and effects to iEgina, Trcezene, and Salamis, and, with all 
their resources, to hasten, in arms, on board their ships. Shortly after 
the Persians entered Athens, plundered the town, and invested the 
citadel, where the priests and poorer citizens had taken refuge. These 
superstitiously believing that Athene would not permit her temple to 
be profaned, defended the place to the last, and on its capture were 
all put to the sword. 

Although of the two hundred and seventy-one trireme galleys, Naval victory 
which, with a few smaller vessels, formed the Grecian fleet, a hundred ^ SaiarSs eks 
and twenty-seven were furnished by Athens alone, the allies refused 
to be commanded by an Athenian. Eurybiades, therefore, the Spartan 
admiral, though apparently little competent to the office, directed the 
fleet. Themistocles, however, by the influence of his policy, was 
happily able to overrule the councils of the nominal commander, who 
was desirous of retreating into the inland seas of Greece ; and after an 
indecisive combat off Artemisium, to force the enemy to a battle at 
Salamis. The result was most glorious for the cause of freedom. The 
Persian armament was broken, dispersed, or fell into the hands of the 
Greeks, in the manner which the reader will find more particularly 
related in the Life of Themistocles, who obtained the first honour of 
the immortal action. 

After the battle of Salamis, the remains of the Persian fleet retreated Xerxes 
towards the Hellespont, and the army, destitute of supplies, fell back aSi™ 8 to 
upon Thessaly. Xerxes returned towards Asia, with the residue of his 
forces, exhausted, afflicted with pestilence, and in the greatest distress 
for want of provisions, though friends and enemies were alike plundered 
by his troops, to contribute to the supply of their hunger. When he 
reached the Hellespont, his stupendous force seemed reduced to an 
empty shadow. He left, however, Mardonius with three hundred 
thousand men, the flower of his army, to prosecute those designs 
which he had been so unexpectedly prevented from accomplishing in 
person. But this great force served but little to excite the apprehen- 
sion of the victorious Greeks. They resigned themselves to rejoicings, 
paid devout offerings to the gods, and rewarded with cheap, but 
highly-prized memorials, the valour of their commanders. Chalcidice, 
a state, hitherto submissive, revolted from the Persians, and asserted 
its right to freedom. But this measure seems to have been unfortunate ; 
for a detachment of Persians, hastening to join Mardonius, took the 
city of Olynthus ; and, with a deliberate cruelty, which recent mis- 
fortunes alone could have inspired, forced the inhabitants to repair to 
a marsh, and put them indiscriminately to the sword. Potideea was 
besieged by the same party, but a rising of the sea forced them to 
retire with great loss ; and they joined Mardonius in Thessaly. 



318 



BATTLES OF PLATJEA AND MYCALE. 



The 

Athenians 

again 

embark. 



B. c. 480. Meanwhile the fleet of the Persians made no fresh efforts against the 

Grecian coasts, but continued, through the winter, at Samos. 
offers to the It could be little doubted that this wonderful deliverance of Greece 
though" 8 ' was chiefly due to the Athenians. Mardonius, therefore, justly con- 
MMedon er ° f ce * vec ^' ^at ^ ^ e cou ld detach them from the confederacy, he should 
find the other states an easy prey. Offers were, therefore, made to 
them, through Alexander, king of Macedon, that their temples should 
be rebuilt, their dominions extended, and their own laws secured to 
them, if they would enter into an alliance with the Persian sovereign. 
Incited by Aristldes, the first of the Greeks in real virtue, they instantly 
rejected the proposals. We refer our readers to the lives of Aristldes 
and Themistocles for the particulars of this noble act of heroism and 
justice. 

The Lacedaemonians, however, were so little sensible of the dis- 
interested resolution of the Athenians in the common cause, that, 
when Mardonius advanced towards Attica, they sent no troops to its 
defence ; and the men to whom Greece owed its liberties, were com- 
pelled once more to retire with their families and goods to Salamis. 
Still, though the offers of the king were renewed, they disdained to 
give them attention ; and Lycidas, who wished to refer them to the 
people, was stoned to death by the populace, and his wife and children 
slain by the infuriated women. Upon this, the Phocians marched into 
Attica, ravaged the country, and took possession of its capital. In 
the meantime the Spartans were thinking only of their own security, 
and fortifying the isthmus with walls which would separate them from 
their nobler allies. At length, however, aroused by the remonstrances 
of the Athenian ambassadors, they sent a band of forty thousand men, 
composed of citizens and Helots, to co-operate with the allies. On 
hearing that this force was in motion, Mardonius left Attica, which, 
from its hills and steep declivities, was peculiarly unfavourable to the 
movements of his cavalry, and fell back into Bceotia, where he fixed 
his camp along the borders of the Asopus. The Grecian forces now 
united, and composing a body of 100,000 men, took their position at 
the foot of Mount Cithaeron, in the face of the Persians, on the opposite 
side of the river. After a warm skirmish, in which the confederates 
were victorious, they marched to Plataea and were followed by their 
foes. Here a great battle was fought, Mardonius slain, and the Per- 
sians completely defeated with tremendous slaughter. On the same 
memorable day, the naval forces of Persia received an equally signal 
overthrow at Mycale, and were compelled, with severe loss, to retreat. 
Thus, almost at a blow, the second mighty attempt against the liberty 
of Greece was frustrated, and terribly avenged on its authors. 

After these victories, the germ of future animosities between Athens 
and Sparta began to appear, in the contest for the Aristeia, or first 
honours of the war ; but the immediate dispute was appeased by 
awarding them to the Platseans. Vengeance was next exacted 



Battle oi 
Plateea. 
B. C. 479. 



Sea-fight at 
Mycale. 



ASCENDANCY OF ATHENS OVER SPARTA. 



319 



against Thebes for her treachery to the common cause. On her b. c. 479. 
refusal to deliver up Timagenides and Attaginus, who were accused of 
having occasioned the defection, the confederates laid waste the terri- Vengeance 
tories, and besieged the city of the Thebans. At length, Attaginus TheW. 
having escaped, his children, with Timagenides, and other obnoxious 
persons, were delivered up to Pausanias, the Spartan general, who 
dismissed the innocent descendants unhurt, but put the rest to death, 
without trial, at Corinth. 

The Greeks were now at leasure to indulge their joy, and express Awards to 
their gratitude for their victories. The Platseans, to whom eighty hero < S. 6Cian 
talents of silver were awarded in testimony of their heroism, employed 
the sum in building and adorning a beautiful temple to Athene. They 
were appointed to perform a grand ceremonial annually to the memory 
of the departed patriots, and in honour of the protecting deities. It 
was also resolved to mark every fifth year with a solemn festival. 
Two monuments of marble were erected at Thermopylae; one in 
honour of the Peloponnesians at large, and the other of those yet 
braver three hundred who fought and died with the Spartan prince. 

The Athenians did not in their haste to rebuild their city forget the 
tribute due to their preservers. They instituted annual ceremonies, 
in which the praises of the heroic dead were celebrated by their most 
gifted orators. They raised columns on the general tomb of those 
who fell at Marathon, among which they paid a tardy tribute of 
respect to Miltiades, who died not there, but in prison, from their 
injuries. 

Athens had suffered, in the great contest, the destruction of her Advance of 
buildings and temples ; but she had acquired a rich compensation in j^^stes of 
power and renown. Sparta, whose superiority over all the other Sparta, 
states, had hitherto been disputed only by Argos, began to entertain 
jealous fears of the advances of a more potent rival. These apprehen- 
sions, although scarcely generous, were not unfounded. By the per- 
suasions of Themistocles, the Athenians had already began to surround Athens 
their city, now rising from its ruins, with strong and extensive fortifica- fortifie ^- r< 
tions, and carried on the work with the most enthusiastic zeal. B * °* ■ 
Against this proceeding, the Lacedaemonians thought fit to remon- 
strate, alleging that experience had shown that Athens fortified would 
only be a stronghold for the invader. Unwilling to relinquish their 
designs, and unprepared by open force to defend their right to fulfil it, 
the Athenians resolved to temporise and dissemble. Themistocles 
undertook this difficult task, for which he was most peculiarly fitted. 
He departed on an embassy to Sparta, where he amused the chief 
magistrates by various pretexts until the fortifications were completed. 
Having, by positively asserting the falsehood of those who affirmed 
the work to be in progress, procured Spartan envoys to be sent 
to ascertain the fact at Athens, he boldly avowed the treachery, and 
confounded the Ephori, by informing them that their deputies would 
be detained as hostages, until he should return in safety. He was 



320 



ASCENDANCY OF ATHENS OVER SPARTA. 



B.C. 478. 



Policy and 
success of 
Themis- 
tocles. 



Prosecution 
of the war 
with Persia, 
and conduct 
of Pausanias. 



The Lacedae- 
monians 
lose their 
ascendancv. 

B.C. 476. 



then permitted to depart, and return home exulting in the success of 
his policy. 1 

Themistocles appears immediately on the expulsion of the Persians 
to have conceived the design of raising Athens to the situation of mis- 
tress and arbiter of Greece. He therefore procured the rejection of the 
proposition of Sparta, excluding from the right of sending deputies to 
vote in the general council those states who had refused to join in the 
confederacy against Xerxes. For he perceived that by this means cities, 
who were" friendly to Athens, would be deprived of all the influence 
by which they could serve her. That his projects might not be 
defeated by their premature discovery at Lacedaemon, he required that 
they should be communicated to two chosen men, with whose concur- 
rence thev should be effected. In concert with these, he caused the 
harbour of the Piraeus to be enlarged, and connected, by long walls, 
with the city. He improved and increased the Athenian navy, and 
turned the energy of his mind towards the advancement of that naval 
power on which his hopes for his country's predominance chiefly rested. 
Being entrusted with the office of levying contributions towards the 
expenses of the war from the allies, situated near the iEgean sea, he 
took every occasion to strengthen the interest of Athens, and preserve 
the way for that avowed ascendancy which he never ceased to meditate. 

Notwithstanding the jealousies which were secretly increasing be- 
tween Athens and Sparta, they continued to unite their efforts against 
the common foe. In the prosecution of these, however, fortune greatly 
favoured the aspiring views of the Athenians. Pausanius, the Spartan 
general, who at first commanded the fleet, soon became obnoxious by 
his pride to the minor confederates. After taking Byzantium, indeed, 
he became more than suspected of traitorous correspondence with 
Persia. He appointed one named Gongylus to be the governor, who 
connived at the escape of the most illustrious of the prisoners, and, 
after this despatched him to the court of Xerxes. There his offers are 
said to have been received with a favour which quite intoxicated him 
with ideas of his approaching grandeur. The Peloponnesians retired in 
disgust ; the chief people of Chios and Samos publicly insulted him, and 
the Spartans themselves sent home accusations against him. Alarmed 
at his proceedings, the Ephori recalled him, and sent Dorieus to take his 
command. The injury, however, which Sparta had sustained in the 
affections of her allies, was too deep to be repaired by this alteration. 
Already had the people of Thrace, Asia Minor, and the islands of the 
iEgean sea, solicited Aristides and Cimon, the Athenian generals, to 
lead them. Their respect had been so conciliated by these virtuous 
men, that they refused to yield obedience to others. Dorieus returning, 
Sparta tacitly yielded to circumstances, and the Athenians, for the first 
time, appeared ostensibly at the head of the Grecian forces. 

1 See a particular account of this transaction, and of the whole policy of Athens 
during the administration and intrigues of Themistocles, in the chapter on " Aris- 
tides and Themistocles." 



EFFECTS OF THE POLICY OF ARISTIDES. 



321 



While the plans of Themistocles for the aggrandisement of his B « c - 476. 
country were thus successful, his own personal influence was declining. pa^niLf 
The stem virtue of Aristides, and the conciliating goodness of Cimon, and Themis- 
effectually, though silently, reproved the conduct of a man, who, though oc es ' 
possessed of courage and consummate ability, showed on many occasions 
a want of noble principle. The people of Athens felt the immediate 
results of the administration of his rivals, and forgot to whom they 
were indebted for the origin of the consequences which they now saw 
unfolding. Instances of his pride and arrogance were studiously brought 
forward by his adversaries ; and, having been accused, though perhaps 
without reason, of a guilty knowledge of the intrigues of Pausanias, he 
was sentenced, by ostracism, to exile. Pausanias, in the mean time, 
continued his haughty and luxurious career until it ended in his total 
ruin. After his death, the Spartans accused Themistocles of a partici- 
pation in his treason, and demanded that he should be tried in a 
general council. He found means, however, to escape into Asia, and B.C. 471. 
seek protection from the king of Persia, which he obtained, and under 
which he died in the manner which, in our account of his life, we have 
particularly related. 

It was the singular fortune of Themistocles to render great service Policy and 
to his country both by his policy and his exile. His successful plans ITS ° f 
had rendered him so obnoxious to the Lacedaemonians, that they never under _ 
would have acquiesced in the ascendancy which they had procured for Aristld6s - 
Athens, had he continued in the possession of influence and favour, 
Aristides, his successor, on the other hand, was calculated to soothe 
their resentments by his known inclination to the aristocracy, which 
they desired to uphold, and his nobleness of character, which all 
agreed in revering. They offered, therefore, no obstruction to the 
plans by which he secured to Athens the management of affairs for all 
the states who had recently sought her alliance. He procured the 
place of meeting for the deputies, sent by the cities to the Grecian 
council, to be changed from Sparta to Delos, and thus deprived Lace- 
daemon of the external symbol of that superiority she had hitherto 
been permitted to assume. He fixed the sum which all the states 
should contribute to the support of that common freedom which their 
beaten, yet potent foe, still anxiously hoped to destroy. The tax, al- 
though amounting to four hundred and sixty talents, or 92,000/., was 
paid with a cheerfulness which could alone have been inspired by the 
virtues of its proposer. Of this treasure, Delos was made the deposi- 
tory, and the Athenians the guardians. Thus, on the death of Aristides, Death of 
he left Athens in the course of acquiring, if she had not already AristId j s ' 
attained, the first place among the Grecian republics. B " °' 4bb ' 

Aristides was succeeded by Cimon, son of Miltiades, in the chief command 
control over the affairs of Athens. Appointed to command the con- ^J 1 ™ "' 
federate forces by sea and land, he resolved on delivering all the successes. 
Grecian cities, both in Europe and Asia, over which the Persians still 
held dominion, from the yoke of the barbarians. He began by attack- 
[h. g.] y 



322 



END OF THE PERSIAN WAR. 



B. c. 468. ing Eion, a city of Thrace, on the river Strymon, with his fleet, where 
much spoil was expected. Its commander, however, finding there 
remained no hope of retaining the fortress, instead of accepting the 
offer of Cimon, of liberty to pass unmolested into Asia, collected his 
treasures, built a funeral pile, and, ascending it with barbaric heroism, 
burned them, together with himself and his family. Mascames, the 
governor of Doriscus, however, was more successful, for he retained 
the place for his sovereign during his life, though it was the only hold 
in Europe occupied by a Persian garrison. All other fortresses in 
Thrace, and on the borders of the Hellespont, submitted to the 
Athenian commander. 
Scyros taken The Grecian states having been greatly molested by the piracies of 
c^Sg ^ 6 ^ nna ^^ ants °f S c y ros > commissioned Cimon to chastise them. He 
' soon took possession of the isle, devoted its people to slavery, and 
supplied their place by a colony from Athens. The Naxians, also, 
who resisted the terms of the confederacy, were reduced to submission, 
and, by a measure without example, compelled to own subjection to 
the Athenian republic. The war in Naxos being concluded, Cimon 
advanced into Caria, where the Grecian city of Phaselis remained 
under the control of the Persians. This city he reduced, after some 
danger from the treachery of the Chians, who were connected with its 
citizens, and who had acquired great spoils. Hearing, however, that 
a Persian fleet was assembled in the river Eurymedon, near the coast 
of Pamphylia, and that an army was at hand to co-operate with the 
naval commanders, he hastened to embark his troops, and offer battle 
to the enemy. He obtained an easy victory, a great part of the fleet 
falling into his hands ; then landing his victorious forces, he defeated, 
though after a severe struggle, the troops on the shore. The camp 
of the Persians, with all its riches, became his spoil, and the whole 
squadron of Phoenician galleys, which had been intended to assist the 
defeated fleet, was, shortly after, added to his trophies. Soon after, 
he repelled an incursion of the Persians into the Chersonesus, took 
thirteen of the hostile vessels, and completely expelled the invaders. 
End of the These successes ended the memorable wars between the millions of 
Persian war. the Persian slaves, and the small but heroic band of Grecian freemen. 

All offensive operations on the part of the oriental sovereigns ter- 
minated here, and the Greeks had nothing to effect but the consolida- 
tion of their institutions, and the maintenance of internal unity — a task 
to which they were unhappily unequal. 
Prosperity of The chastisement of Thasos, and the possession of its mines of gold, 
disSoT d added greatly to the riches and power of Athens. Possessed of great 
Laced aemon. spoils, Cimon, with a taste as exalted as the hardihood of his valour, 
adorned the city with porticoes, plantations, and temples. While the 
Athenians were thus advancing in elegance as well as power, the Lace- 
daemonians were visited with the severest distresses. A terrible shock 
of an earthquake laid the city of Sparta in ruins, and buried the flower 
of its noble youths beneath them. Invited by the opportunitv. the 



PREVALENCE OF DEMOCRACY IN ATHENS. 



323 



Helots, the oppressed and degraded slaves of the citizens, rose in arms B. c. 464. 
to assert the rights of nature over their oppressive masters. They were helots of the 
disappointed, indeed, in the hope of seizing the country by surprise, 
amidst its distresses, by the sudden appearance of a regular band, who, 
accustomed to an unrivalled discipline, appeared in an instant, in mili- 
tary array, at the sound of the martial instruments. But, traversing 
the fields, they incited their fellows to join them, and soon greatly ex- 
ceeded, in numbers, their late oppressors. They seized the strong- 
fortress of Ithome, and thence took every occasion to harass their foe in 
keen revenge for former injuries. In the meanwhile the Spartans were 
reduced to great misery from the want of the assistance of the slaves 
in tillage, which, unaccustomed themselves to the arts of peace, they 
were little able to supply. In this state of difficulty and peril they 
condescended to apply for assistance to Athens. Notwithstanding the 
jealousies which still existed, the aid required was granted, on the cimon assists 
persuasion of Cimon. That noble-minded general marched at the ^aimt a the' S 
head of an army to their deliverance, and rendered them most import- Helots, 
ant services. Unhappily, however, the junction of the troops of Athens 
and Sparta gave occasion to perpetual irritations, which served to in- 
crease the hostile feeling existing between the republics. At length 
the Athenians were dismissed by the Lacedaemonians, as those for 
whose assistance there was no further occasion. This measure so 
exasperated the citizens of Athens, that they renounced the alliance 
with Sparta, and made a league with its inveterate foes, the people of 
Argos. The Argives had, during the insurrection of the Helots, made 
war on the state of Mycenas, the old antagonist of their pretensions, 
completely destroyed its forces, reduced its people to slavery, and 
razed its walls to their foundations. 

Hatred of Sparta now became a very deep and pervading emotion in 
the breasts of the Athenian populace. It was heightened by Ephialtes, 
the leader of the democratic party, whose love of a popular government 
quickened the other causes of dislike which he cherished towards the 
Lacedaemonian institutions and policy. So strong, indeed, was the prevalence 
feeling thus excited, that Cimon, who was anxious for peace with the Je*o CTatic 
Peloponnesians, and attached to an oligarchy, was, notwithstanding all party, and 
his victories, munificence, and equity, sentenced by ostracism to exile. Jf^ ' 
Among those who joined in this popular act of injustice, was Pericles, 
the son of Xantippus, who had acquired great popularity by his 
eloquence, during the absence of Cimon, when that general was 
engaged in extending the influence of Athens. After the banishment 
of Cimon, Ephialtes and Pericles continued to pursue, with great 
earnestness, their attempts to render the government purely demo- 
cratic, and to aggrandize Attica, at the expense of the Spartan power. 
Fortunately for their views, a dispute between the states of Megara 
and Corinth, which had both been part of the Lacedaemonian alliance, 
induced the former to leave its old protectors, now unable or unwilling 
to assist it, and to implore the alliance of the Athenians. The request 

y 2 



banishment 
Cimon. 



324 



WAK BETWEEN ATHENS AND COKINTH. 



Expeditions 
to Cyprus 
and Egypt. 



b. c. 460. of the Megareans was joyfully granted, and their city of Megara, and 
their port of Pegse, filled with Athenian garrisons. Meanwhile Pericles 
and Ephialtes gained a great accession of power, to the permanent 
injury of Greece, by persuading their countrymen to reduce the dignity 
and the powers of the court of Areopagus, and to take from it the 
direction of the public treasury. A decree, proposed by the latter, 
which gave the control over the state revenue, and the decision of 
important causes hitherto vested in that august tribunal, to the 
assembly of the people, was adopted by the flattered and deluded 
citizens. Thus were these chiefs enabled to bribe the people with 
their own treasures, and thus to secure the ratifications of any measures 
they thought fit to propose. They soon perceived the necessity of 
employing the confederates on some common enterprise, and accord- 
ingly sent Charitimis with two hundred galleys to reduce the island of 
Cyprus. Scarcely, however, had the expedition departed, when Inarus 
invited the Athenians to assist in rescuing Egypt from the dominion 
of the Persians. His offer was eagerly accepted by the chiefs of 
Athens, who hoped, in the riches of Egypt, to find spoils which might 
attach even the fickle Athenians firmly to their cause. They, there- 
fore, despatched orders to Charitimis to abandon immediate designs 
against Cyprus, and assist the revolted battalions in Egypt. This 
distant contest was for a long time doubtful. Requests from the 
Persian monarch to Sparta, to make a diversion into Attica, which 
might draw the troops from Egypt, met with an honourable refusal. 
At length, a numerous fleet and army were sent to reduce Egypt, by 
whom the Egyptians were defeated, and their Grecian allies closely 
besieged in Prosopitis, an island in the Nile. This, their last hold, 
was taken, after they had long and vigorously resisted, and, though 
some escaped through Lybia to Cyrene, the greater number were put 
to the sword. Inarus, betrayed by his own soldiers, was crucified, 
and the whole of Egypt, with little exception, was compelled once 
more to submit to the yoke of the Persians. 

During these disastrous operations in Egypt, the internal dissensions 
of the Grecian states continued to increase. The alliance with Megara 
war between naturally drew on the Athenians the resentment of the Corinthians and 
their Peloponnesian confederates. At Heliae, the Athenians were de- 
feated by the united forces of Epidaurus and Corinth ; but, shortly 
after, more than recovered the loss, by completely overthrowing the 
fleet of their foes, though assisted by the naval power of iEgina. After 
taking seventy vessels, they landed and laid siege to the capital of the 
iEginetans, but were prevented from obtaining possession of its fort- 
resses by large succours thrown into them by its allies. While the 
Athenians were engaged in blockading the town, the Corinthians, 
hoping to draw them from their main design, invaded the territories 
of Megara. Instead, however, of raising the siege, the people of Athens 
sent out a body of new recruits, composed of their old men and inex- 
perienced youths, under Myronides, to repel the invaders. An action 



Egvpt 
reduced by 
the Persians 



Athens and 
Corinth 



WAR BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA. 



325 



speedily ensued, in which the Athenian troops gained the advantage B. c. 457. 
over their foes, and remained masters of the field. The Corinthians, 
on their return, being reproached as defeated by adversaries whom 
they had despised, returned to the place where the battle was fought, 
and erected a trophy. While they were thus engaged, Myronides 
sallied from Megara, fell upon them suddenly, threw them into con- 
fusion, cut off their retreat, and pursued them with a slaughter so 
dreadful, that every Corinthian was slain. iEgina held out for some 
time longer, but was, at length, forced to capitulate, and to submit to 
the loss of its ships, the demolition of its fortifications, and the impo- 
sition of an annual tribute. After these successes, the Athenians 
began to build the long walls from the city to its ports, to secure to 
them the full benefit of that great arm of their power, the empire over 
the seas. 

During the Corinthian war, Sparta had remained inactive, through The war 
weakness. She was, however, soon after incited to assist the Dorians, Borland 
who were regarded with veneration as the first settlers of Pelopon- Phocis 
nesus, in an attack made upon them from Phocis. In the original hostilities 
object, the Lacedeemonian forces, under Nicomedes, were successful, as ^tan1ans he 
they repelled the Phocian invaders, on whom they enjoined terms. But and Spartans, 
the democratic party, who now directed the affairs of Athens, resolved 
to oppose the return of Nicomedes to the Laconian borders, which 
their naval power and their possession of the Megarean territories 
afforded them the means of effecting. After suffering him to 
winter in Bceotia, they attacked him in the spring, near Tanagra, and Battle of 
met his troops in a fierce but indecisive action. On the next day, by Tana s ra - 
the aid of the Thessalian horsemen, who deserted from the Athenians, 
the Lacedaemonians obtained the victory. They, however, pursued 
the advantage no further than to secure their road homeward, through 
the regions of Megara, which they devastated in their passage. 

Notwithstanding this check, the cause of Athens continued to Successes of 
prosper. The Thebans having entered into an alliance with Sparta, Athens - 
were opposed, with great vigour, by Myronides, who defeated them 
at (Enophyta, took from them Tanagra, and compelled all the towns 
in Boeotia, except Thebes itself, to submit to the Athenian power. 
This brave commander next secured Phocis, and terrified the Opuntian 
Locrians into submission. Nor was the Athenian fleet less successful 
than its army. Tolmides conducted it in a cruise round Pelopon- 
nesus, during which he burnt the naval arsenal of the Lacedaemonians, 
at Gythium, defeated the people of Sicyon, and took Chalcis. He 
also collected the Helots, who, after holding Ithome for nearly ten 
years, had surrendered, on condition of leaving the peninsula, and 
settled them at Naupactus, under the name of Messenians. Thus 
another state was founded, naturally most hostile to the cause of 
Sparta, and devoted to that of Athens. 

mi a i mi Operations 

Ine Athenians were less successful in Thessaly, into which region inThessaly 
they carried their arms, at the request of its exiled prince, Orestes. ponne?uI 



326 



DEATH OF CIMON. 



B. c. 457. Unaccustomed to contend against cavalry, they were forced, although 
commanded by Myronides, to retire. This repulse was soon counter- 
balanced by the success of Pericles, who, sailing with a squadron for 
Peloponnesus, defeated the Sicyonians, ravaged the Arcarnanian coast, 
and returned home with considerable spoils. (See Pericles.) 
Recall of The progress of the internal hostilities of Greece was now, for a 
g™ on 455 short time, happily suspended by the recall of Cimon from banishment, 
'on the proposal of his old antagonist, Pericles (See Cimon and 
Pericles). The influence of Cimon with the aristocracy and the 
Lacedeemonians, ensured, during the residue of his life, concord 
between the two great powers of Greece and their dependents and 
allies. To give employment to the citizens, whom continual wars 
had rendered unfit for the arts and duties of peace, he proposed the 
His reduction of Cyprus. For this island he sailed with a fleet of two 

tJc^rS? nun dred galleys, and laid siege to its chief city, Citium. While his 
His death' arm 7 was engaged in the blockade of this place he died of a disease, 
B. c. 449. an d with him the hope of Grecian stability and repose expired. After 
his death his forces retreated, and fought victoriously for a passage 
to their ships. Having gained them, and joined the relics of the 
armament which had been so unsuccessful in Egypt, they sailed for 
Athens. Meanwhile Pericles restored to the Phocians the custody of 
the common treasures of Greece, at Delphi, which the government of 
Sparta had unjustly wrested from them and given to the Delphians. 
Revolt of the The death of Cimon was the cause of dissolving the amity which 
fromAtiferi. na( ^ recently been preserved by the veneration inspired by his 
B. c. 445. character. Megara revolted from the Athenians, but was soon 
reduced to own their dominion. The Boeotians, who had been sub- 
dued by Myronides, threw off the alliance, and made inroads on the 
neighbouring regions. Against these Tolmides was sent, contrary to 
the opinion of Pericles, who expected no benefit from his plans. 
After taking Chaeronea, he was attacked by a numerous force of 
the insurgents, slain in the action, and all those of his soldiers 
who survived were taken prisoners. As many of the captives were 
related to the noblest families of Athens, the government of that 
city procured their deliverance by ransom, and obtained a treaty, 
in which they resigned all claim to interference with the Boeotian 
domains. Euboea next threw off the yoke of Athens; and, before 
Pericles could arrive to quell the insurrection, Megara once more rose 
against its Athenian masters. Nearly at the same time, the Lacedae- 
monians, resolving to take advantage of the difficulties which now 
beset their adversaries, burst, in great force, into Attica, under Pleis- 
tonax, their youthful sovereign. Pericles, however, induced their 
army to retire, by bribing the tutor and confidential adviser of the 
inexperienced prince, who having received ten talents for the exertion 
of his influence, persuaded the king to give up the enterprise. The 
insurgents of Megara and Euboea were soon after reduced by Pericles. 
That accomplished general, however, perceived the necessity of con- 



GREATNESS OF ATHENS UNDER PERICLES. 



327 



solidating the Athenian power, which so many dependencies had shown B. c. 457. 
a disposition to oppose. To obtain peace, he consented to resign 
Nisaea, Pegse, Achaia, and Trcezene ; to desist from all claim ; on 
Bceotia, and to permit every state, hitherto neutral, to enter into an 
alliance either with Athens or Sparta, according to its free preference. 

Athens now enjoyed repose for six years, under the splendid admi- Truce for 
nistration of Pericles. Although deprived of somewhat of her conclude" 8 
external influence during the wars, after the death of Cimon, her b. c. 444, 
internal greatness had been progressive, and had now reached its internal 
summit, after most rapid advances. The finest of the arts and ^JjJJJJ 88 ot 
embellishments of life had there been first developed, and shortly under 
appeared in their fairest perfection. Tragedy, but lately a rude cere- Pericles - 
monial, had been elevated by iEschylus to the most heroic dignity, 
and softened by Sophocles into the most harmonious sweetness. 
Unhappily, corruption was insensibly making way amidst this throng 
of noble spirits, too soon to destroy the energies which they lived to 
inspire. But we cannot dwell on the short-lived greatness of Athens 
without a feeling of triumph that earth has known a grandeur so 
stately and a beauty so exquisite, even when those principles of truth 
and virtue were but imperfectly understood, by which alone they 
could be rendered lasting. 

The dissensions continually arising among the smaller republics of The Samian 
Greece offered perpetual temptations to the greater to interfere, for war - 
the purposes of extending their own dominion. Thus, after six years B * C * 
of the truce had expired, the Athenians were induced to interfere in 
behalf of the Milesians, who were engaged in a war with Samos. 
Notwithstanding the power of Athens, the opposition made by the 
Samians was long, and the final triumph was not achieved before the 
Athenians had sustained considerable losses. At first, Pericles, who 
on this occasion commanded in person, made an easy conquest of the 
island, and transferred the government from the nobles to the people ; 
but a new and determined revolt soon after compelled him to return 
to the attack with increased forces. During a short absence from 
the investment of Samos, occasioned by false intelligence respecting 
the approach of the Phoenician navy, that part of Ins fleet which he 
had left before the island was destroyed by the Samians. He returned, 
however, with great vigour to the war, and succeeded in reducing the 
foe to submission, after a siege of nine months ; in which, for the first 
time, tortoises and battering-rams were employed for the reduction of 
hostile fortresses. 

This fiercely- contested struggle served to inflame those animosities War between 
which were shortly to incite all the Grecian states to engage in a Corinth and 
domestic warfare, in which all their glories were destined to perish. Lorcyra " 
Another cause of provocation arose in a war between Corcyra and 
Corinth, which took place in consequence of the interference of the 
latter to settle disputes at Epidamnum, a colony of the former. The 
Corcyrians, though victorious, fearing the naval power of their foes, 



328 



WAR RESPECTING POTID^A. 



b. c. 440. entreated the assistance of Athens ; and the Corinthians, at the same 
time, sent deputies thither to oppose the request of then: foes. Both 
parties were admitted formally to plead their cause before the people, 
which they did, in the elaborate orations which Thucydides has left 
us. In this negotiation, the Corcyrians were in some measure suc- 
cessful, since they obtained a defensive alliance with Athens, and 
Naval action, some naval succours to assist them. With these they engaged with 
B.C. 436. the Corinthian fleet in a naval action, in which neither party obtained 
a decisive victory. A fresh squadron having arrived from Athens, 
intimidated the Corinthians from renewing the battle though urged on 
by their foes ; and the Athenians, not wishing further to irritate them, 
suffered them to retire without injury. Each party erected a trophy, 
and the war ended with no other result than that of increasing the 
feuds among the Greeks, and strengthening the feeling of hostility 
which numbers of them cherished against the Athenians, 
war Another cause of irritation afterwards arose in consequence of the 

iS£ ng: intrigues of Perdiccas, king of Macedon. This artful prince was 
desirous of inciting Corinth to war with Athens, in order that the 
latter state might be unable to continue its opposition to his ambitious 
designs against two neighbouring princes, his relatives, to whom it 
had extended its protection. 

Fortunately for his purpose, Potidaea, a city within the borders of 
Macedon, now a dependency of Athens, had originally been built by 
Corinthian emigrants. This town he now offered to restore to 
Corinth, its mother-country, in expectation of the resentment such a 
step would occasion. Before he could execute his design, the Athe- 
nians received information respecting it, and sent to the Potidaeans, 
requiring that they would demolish their walls, give hostages for 
their fidelity, and dismiss their Corinthian magistrates. Having in 
vain attempted to obtain a remission of these orders, the Potidaeans 
openly revolted, and were shortly after joined by the Chalcidians and 
Bottiaeans, with whom they concluded a treaty. The Corinthians 
sent a considerable force, under Aristaeus, to assist them ; and Per- 
diccas gave them aid, by his troops and his councils. To oppose this 
combination, the Athenians despatched first Archestratus, and after- 
wards Callias, with naval and military forces, who succeeded in com- 
pelling the enemy to take refuge within Potidaea, before which he 
himself encamped. Aristaeus, however, found means to escape to 
Olynthus, and thence sent despatches to Corinth to entreat fresh 
succours, without which the city must be taken. 
Sparta roused The Corinthians were now indefatigable in stirring up a confederacy 
AtE° S6 against Athens. The people of iEgina, who panted to be freed from 
b. c. 432. subjection to them, were active in inflaming the resentments which 
the Corinthians had excited. All the foes of Athens applied eagerly to 
Sparta to take the lead in the general cause. These, at a public assem- 
bly convened at Lacedsemon brought forward then charges, which the 
Corinthians most vehemently supported. Ambassadors from Athens, 



THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 



329 



accidentally in the city, were admitted to hear and answer them. They b. c. 432. 
disdained, however, to acknowledge that the tribunal was competent to 
judge the conduct of their republic, and offered to yield to the mode of 
decision, pointed out in cases of dispute, by the existing league. After 
all parties had withdrawn, warm discussions ensued among the Spar- 
tans on the great question of peace or war ; but on a division a large 
majority voted for the contest. Another general assembly was, how- 
ever, deemed requisite before further steps were hazarded, where the 
larger part, urged by the Corinthians, again declared for war. But the 
confederates were compelled to seek delay. An embassy was sent to 
Athens, under pretence of requiring the exile of all the descendants of 
those who were concerned in a pollution, which had been incurred by 
some with whom the family of Pericles was connected. This was met 
by a demand for a similar purgation of the sacrilegious guilt incurred 
by the Spartans, in the death of Pausanias and the execution of the 
Helots, who had been forced from the altar of Poseidon. After this 
solemn trifling, requisitions were made by the Lacedaemonians that the 
Athenians should raise the siege of Potidasa, open their ports to the 
Megareans and renounce all dominion over the states of Greece. 
The Athenians, animated by the eloquent harangues of Pericles, 
returned for answer, that they would repeal their restrictions on 
the Megarean commerce, if the Peloponnesians would open their ports 
to them and their allies : that they would resign all authority over their 
dependencies, if the Spartans would do the same ; and that they would 
submit all other points in dispute to a judicial determination, according 
to the treaty by which the truce had been protected. These terms 
were, as was anticipated, refused ; and all parties prepared with great 
earnestness for the approaching struggle. 

As, in the life of Pericles, we have related the chief events of the summary of 
Peloponnesian wars which occurred until the death of that illustrious ^^^J |J£ 
Athenian, we shall here only give such an outline of them as may be war. 
necessary to preserve the connection of the history. Before the prin- 
cipal states were ready for the contest, hostilities were commenced by 
an attempt of the Thebans to seize the small but heroic town of Platsea, B , c . 431, 
which had always been distinguished for its fidelity to the Athenian 
cause. This attempt was attended with failure, and its circumstances, 
especially the conduct of the Platseans in putting their prisoners to 
death, tended to heighten every hostile feeling, and render the contest 
more obstinate and more savage. The Peloponnesians, shortly after, 
advanced into Attica, and laid waste its fields and villages, while the 
Athenians, following the councils of Pericles, persisted in declining a 
battle. They sent, however, a fleet to revenge the injuries committed 
on their soil, by devastating the coasts of Peloponnesus, which took 
Thorisson and iEgina, and secured the latter by placing in it an Athe- 
nian colony. At length Archidamus, the Spartan king, retreated, and 
Pericles sallied forth and plundered Megara. In the following year, Plague at 
the pestilence bringing confusion with it, enfeebled and distracted Athens - 



330 



DEATH OF PERICLES. 



Death of 
Pericles. 

b. c. 429 

Third year 
of the war. 



Siege of 
Plataea. 



B. c. 430. Athens, while the enemy again advanced to insult and defy its citizens. 

An expedition against Chalcis and Potidaea proved disastrous, in conse- 
quence of the ravages of the plague, which destroyed the flower of the 
soldiery. Maddened by these calamities, the people rebelled against 
their great leader, inflicted on him a fine of eighty talents, and dis- 
missed him from his offices of power. 

Domestic afflictions, added to his public disgrace, seemed to fill up 
the cup of human wretchedness. He was, however, soon recalled to 
the helm of government for the short remainder of his days. Mean- 
while, the Lacedaemonians ravaged the isle of Zacynthus, and the siege 
of Potidsea terminated by its surrender to the Athenians. Pericles, 
soon after this success, expired through the influence of the disease which 
had rendered his house and the city desolate. The best hopes of Athens 
perished with him. 

Unable to make any impression on Athens, or to incite its citizens 
to a battle, the Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, turned their arms 
against the Plataeans. They hoped by this course to bring some of the 
Athenian forces to the relief of their faithful allies, and thus to compel 
them to risk an engagement which hitherto they had carefully avoided. 
They first, however, offered to withdraw, on receiving the promise of 
the Plataeans to remain neutral. The citizens were desirous of accepting 
this offer ; but, as they had pledged themselves to the cause of the 
Athenians, who were now protecting their wives and children, they 
thought it necessary to consult them on the measures which they should 
pursue. In answer to the application, they were desired to refuse the 
terms, and promised assistance. On this, they immediately, from their 
walls, informed the Lacedaemonians that it was out of their power to 
accept their proposals. Archidamus, when he heard this reply, solemnly 
invoked the gods to witness that the league was broken voluntarily by 
the citizens of Plataea, and prepared vigorously to besiege the city. 
Although the whole garrison consisted only of four hundred Plataeans, 
eighty Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to prepare food, the 
siege which followed the rejection of the conditions, is one of the most 
renowned in the annals of war. The Spartans began by surrounding 
the town with a palisade, and building a pile from whence they could 
make an assault on the fortresses. These works, for which they pro- 
cured the materials from Mount Cithaeron, occupied seventy days. 
Meanwhile the besieged threw up a framework from their walls, oppo- 
site to the mound, behind which they constructed a rampart of equal 
altitude. Finding, however, that they could not continue this work to 
a greater height without endangering it? stability, they broke through 
the wall against which the mound was erected, and removed the earth 
which constituted its foundation. For some time this scheme was un- 
discovered by the Lacedaemonians ; but, at length, perceiving that their 
work, though continually supplied, made no progress, they enclosed 
the earth in basket-work, which the enemy could not destroy. On this 
precaution, the Plataeans undermined the work, and built an additional 



SIEGE OF PLATJiA. 



331 



wall in the form of a crescent, to shield them if the outer fortification B. c. 429. 
should be taken. At length the besiegers commenced the assault with 
battering rams, one of which placed on their mount shook the structure 
on the rampart, while the others were employed against various parts 
of the fortresses. These engines were disordered and broken by ropes let 
down from above, and fragments of rocks hurled on them by the Pla- 
tseans. Every means of attack was tried by the besiegers, and rendered 
futile by the courage and skill of their foes. At length the Spartans 
tried by stupendous masses of wood, dipped in sulphur, to set fire to 
the town ; but a tempest of rain and thunder delivered it from this im- 
minent peril. Finding all their efforts to take the city by force in vain, 
the besiegers had recourse to a blockade. For more than eighteen The Spartans 
months this heroic town continued to defy them. After the expiration pjjjjl? 6 
of this period, as the garrison seemed likely soon to be destitute of 
provisions, Eupompidas, its governor, formed the bold design of escap- 
ing with his whole company. Only two hundred and twenty, however, 
persevered in the execution of the heroic plan. With these, in a dark 
and stormy night, he left the town, crossed the ditch, and advanced 
with ladders to the wall of circumvallation. In the middle of the 
space between the two turrets, six light-armed soldiers mounted 
silently, gained the parapet unperceived, and waited for their compa- 
nions. Others hastened to support them, and numbers had ascended, 
or were climbing, when the fall of a tile from a battlement roused the 
troops from their slumbers. Darkness, however, still favoured the Pla- 
tseans, and their friends within the town, by a feigned attack on the 
fortifications, diverted the attention of the enemy . Meanwhile the party 
who had at first gained the summit, had forced the towers on each 
side, and by the discharge of missile weapons, prevented any from ap- 
proaching to obstruct the ascent of their companions. All, as they 
mounted, formed in regular line, and united with those on the turrets 
in protecting the passage until the whole had ascended, when they 
drew up the ladders, and descended in good order from the opposite 
battlements. In passing the ditch much confusion arose, during which 
the enemy's guard approached them. Missile weapons, however, still 
availed them : they arrived in safety on the banks, and struck off in- 
stantly into the road towards Thebes, being the direction which the 
Spartans would least expect them to pursue. They judged rightly : 
the besiegers sought them along the Athenian road, as they per- Part f the 
ceived by the light of their line of torches. The heroic band soon Hataeans 
changed their course, reached the passes of the mountains, and, with escape ' 
the loss of only one taken prisoner in the ascent, arrived in triumph at 
Athens. A different fate was reserved for the residue of the garrison Massacre of 
who had declined the perilous enterprise. In the third year of fhe the rcsidue - 
siege, reduced to the extremity of suffering by hunger, they accepted a 
proposal of the Lacedaemonians for their surrender, on condition, " that 
only the guilty should be punished, and even those not without trial." 
When, however, they came to this trial, the only question asked of 



332 



MASSACRE OF THE PLAT^EAXS. 



B.C. 429. 

Massacre 
of the 
Plataeans. 



Defeat of 
Xeuophon. 



Victories 
of the 

Acarnanians. 



Victories of 
Phormion. 



them was, " Whether, during the war, they had done any service to the 
Lacedaemonians or their allies ?" Perceiving that this demand was only 
made in order to afford a pretext for their destruction, they urged their 
strong and unanswerable claims on the mercy and the justice of their 
foes. They alluded to their great services in the common cause against the 
Persian invaders ; after which these temples, now devoted to ruin, had 
been dedicated to that grateful worship which the Plataeans were selected 
to perform. They urged that in seeking the alliance of Athens, they 
had only followed the councils of Sparta, who had declined receiving 
them under her protection, and that having once joined the Athenian 
cause, they could not without infamy forsake it. They reminded the 
Lacedaemonians of the assistance they had rendered to them when 
reduced to the deepest misery by the earthquake and the rebellion of their 
slaves. They, at least, asserted a right, if the terms of the capitulation 
were thus to be distorted, to be restored to the city which they had 
been induced to leave, that there they might choose their own means 
of perishing. The appeal was made in vain. The Thebans, the inex- 
orable foes of the Plataeans, incited the Spartans to the murder of their 
captives. The absurd question originally asked was repeated to each 
in succession ; and as all answered it in the negative, they were, one 
after the other, led out to the slaughter. A deed at once so mean and 
so atrocious was worthy only of the masters of the Helots, and can be 
accounted for alone by an education in which fierce and harsh emotions 
seem to have been inspired even by their mothers ! 

During the protracted siege of Plataea, the war was vigorously pro- 
secuted in other regions, both by sea and by land. The Athenians, 
under Xenophon the son of Euripides, were defeated in Chalcidice, 
the general and four hundred citizens slain, and the rest of the army 
forced to return to Athens. In Acarnania, on the other hand, the 
Athenian cause was crowned with success. The people of Ambracia 
having united in the cause of the Spartans, laid plaos for the conquest 
of Acarnania, and the reduction of Zacynthus, Cephalenia, and Nau- 
pactus ; by which they would prevent the Athenian fleets from cruising 
in the western seas, and making incursions on the Peloponnesian shores. 
In the commencement of the operations for this purpose, they were 
joined by bands of the allies, and a number of Spartans led by Cnemus. 
Part of the army marching in confusion were attacked near Stratus with 
so great an effect, that Cnemus found it necessary to retire. Phormion, 
meantime, with only twenty Athenian galleys, gained a most brilliant 
victory over the Corinthian fleet of forty-seven ships, by a union of the 
most consummate skill, with the most determined valour. But finding 
that his adversaries, by using the utmost exertion to repair their loss, 
had collected a fleet of seventy-seven vessels, he sent to Athens for an 
addition to his squadron. Instead of directing a reinforcement imme- 
diately to join him, the rulers at Athens, now influenced by Isicias, 
suffered the forces intended for his aid to make a descent on Crete in 
their way, where they only acquired plunder, and were detained by 



STATE OF ATHENS UNDER NICIAS AND CLEON. 333 

contrary winds. Phormion, however, while they thus delayed to join B.C. 429. 
him, gained some wonderful advantages over the hostile fleet, which was 
almost four times as numerous as his own. The Spartan commanders 
thus unsuccessful, resolved to attempt the redemption of their fame by 
an effort to surprise the port of Piraeus itself, now left unguarded. 
They accordingly sailed from Nisaea with forty galleys, and would have 
succeeded, had not a contrary wind delayed their course, and induced 
them to land at Salamis. Hence, after taking spoils and a few pri- 
soners, they returned to Nisaea, having given the Athenians a salutary 
lesson to keep an adequate guard for the defence of their harbour, on 
the safety of which their whole power rested. 

During the winter, Sitalces, king of Thrace, with whom the Athe- Thracian 
nians were in alliance, excited great alarm by his irruption with an im- ex P editlon * 
mense army into Macedon, to wrest the throne from Perdiccas, and 
bestow it on Philip his nephew. These movements, however, soon 
terminated in an accommodation, and the Thracians returned home 
without disturbing Greece. In the following autumn, the confederates state of 
invaded Attica ; and, although they speedily retired, greatly damaged Athens - 
the ripening corn, and thus added to the internal distresses of Athens. 
That ill-fated city had now no Pericles nor Cimon to direct its councils. 
Over these, Mcias and Cleon attained the chief influence : the first, Characters of 
generous, mild, of excellent disposition, and of elegant taste, but diffident ^leon and 
and wavering ; the latter, coarse, bold, and sarcastic, where eloquence 
chiefly swayed the lowest of the people. The decisive folly and 
imposing rashness of the latter, too often, as might be expected, 
prevailed over the calm wisdom of the former, which had firmness to 
support it. Great difficulties were experienced in raising supplies for 
the support of the war, which were obviated for a time by the expe- 
dient of raising a sum of four hundred talents by the contributions of 
the citizens. 

While Athens was distracted by famine, disease, and misrule, news Revolt of 
arrived that Mitylene had revolted, and that Attica was threatened ^J 16 ^ 
with another invasion. This intelligence aroused the Athenians to put 
forth their utmost exertions. The rebellious city was invested ; Asce- 
pius, son of Phormion, was employed in a diversion on the Pelopon- 
nesian shores ; and a fleet of a hundred galleys was manned, and sent 
out to intimidate the confederates. Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian emissary, 
having found means to enter Mitylene, distributed arms to the lower class 
of citizens, with a view to a more vigorous defence against the besiegers ; 
newly-armed citizens, however, turned their power against their gene- 
rals, whom they soon forced to capitulate, on terms which placed the 
people at the mercy of Athens. Paches, the Athenian admiral, having 
taken Notium, and treacherously caused Hippias, the general of the 
Arcadian forces, to be slain, returned to Lesbos, and sent Salaethus, and 
other chiefs, to Athens as prisoners. On their arrival, the people B. c. 427. 
ordered the immediate execution of the Spartans ; and, incited by the 
harangues of Cleon, despatched orders to Mitylene, commanding that 



334 



CONTENTIONS IN CORCYRA. 



b. c. 427. all its males should be put to death, and its women and children re- 
duced to slavery. The next day, however, Diodorus, the son of Eu- 
crates, succeeded in procuring a countermand to be issued, and his 
messengers happily arrived just in time to prevent the massacre. 
Dreadful Corcyra, which had been the immediate cause of the war, now be- 
in Corcyra S came tne scene of most tragical events, occasioned by a contest between 
the aristocratic party, who yet favoured Corinth, and the democratic 
body, who were devoted to the Athenians. The nobles, at first, suc- 
ceeded in procuring a declaration of neutrality ; but venturing to accuse 
Pithias, the leader of the opposite cause, and failing to convict him, five 
of them became in their turn objects of prosecution, on the charge of 
having cut stakes in the sacred groves, which subjected them to severe 
pecuniary fines. Unable to pay the penalty, they fled, and Pithias, now 
master of the council, proposed an alliance, offensive and defensive, with 
Athens. Rendered desperate by this change in affairs, the five nobles 
left the altars where they had taken refuge, rushed with arms into the 
place of public deliberation, and, taking advantage of the surprise of the 
assembly, murdered Pithias and sixty of his associates. Sallying from 
these murders into the city, they re-established their power over citizens 
petrified with fear and wonder. But a civil war shortly ensued, in 
which the nobles were the popular party, joined by the slaves, and by 
auxiliaries from Epirus. The hostile bands came to a terrible engagement 
in the ports and the city, in which the women, inspired with the 
general fury, hurled down tiles and stones from the tops of houses on 
their enemies. In this combat, the aristocratical party was defeated, 
and only escaped to the port and arsenal, which they held, by set- 
ting fire to the buildings, the flames of which spread with tremendous 
fury. The next morning they were deserted by their allies, and saw no 
hope of being delivered from the hands of their infuriated countrymen. 
While affairs were in this condition, Nicostratus, commander of the 
Athenian fleet at Naupactus, arrived ; and, while he restored the demo- 
cratic goverment with great moderation and address, procured for the 
despairing nobles an indemnity, and the liberty of enjoying their rights 
as citizens. Fresh disturbances, however, arose from the distrust of 
the aristocratical party, and the resentment of the suspicion by the po- 
pular leaders. Four hundred of the oligarchical faction took refuge in 
the temple of Here, which they quitted on the oaths of the citizens to 
spare them, and retired to a neigbouring island; but soon after a Pelo- 
ponnesian fleet, under Alcidas, appeared, and the suppliants, to pre- 
vent their co-operation with that commander, were removed to the 
sanctuary which they had quitted. An engagement ensued between 
the hostile armaments, in which the Peloponnesians gained an advan- 
tage, though, by the skill of the Athenian commander, it was prevented 
from becoming decisive. Alcidas, destitute of energy to improve his 
success, merely ravaged the fields of Leucimne ; and on the approach 
of a fresh Athenian fleet, under Eurymedon, retreated. This com- 
mander having arrived, and Nicostratus having left the station for 



SLAUGHTER AT CORCYRA. 



335 



.Naupactus, the democratic party at Corcyra gave vent to their fierce B. c. 427. 
desires of vengeance. They caused their fleet to pass from one of Slaughter at 
their ports to the other, and threw into the sea all the crew who Coro y ra# 
favoured the oligarchical faction. They then commenced a dreadful 
massacre in the city. For seven days they were employed in searching 
for and destroying their foes. The suppliants only, who had taken 
residence in the temples, protracted a miserable existence a little 
longer. Some were induced to leave the sanctuaries by hunger, and 
promises of a trial ; but they were immediately condemned and slain. 
Others saw a wall built round their place of refuge, to immure them 
while living, in the grave. Those who remained killed each other, or 
hung themselves in the sacred groves, to escape the lingering horrors 
which threatened them. Meanwhile, Eurymedon lay with his fleet 
in the harbour, the quiet and guilty spectator of the accursed scene. 
Even yet the miseries of Corcyra were not ended. Five hundred of 
the aristocratical party who escaped, harassed it from the opposite 
coasts ; and, at length, invaded its fields, fortified a castle among the 
mountains, and thence making incursions on the country, made it 
experience all the miseries of a ferocious domestic warfare. 

In the sixth year of the war, the affairs of the Athenians seemed at sixth year t 
first to decline. The pestilence, after two years' intermission, again the war * 
ravaged their city. Demosthenes, with a fleet of thirty ships, was 
sent to Naupactus, and after gaining some advantages in the Leucadian Battles of 
territory, he was induced to employ his force on an expedition against ^JJe wSt ° S 
the iEtolians, by whom he was completely defeated near JEgitium. 
This misfortune was followed by the declaration of the Orgilian 
Locrians for the Spartan cause. But Demosthenes soon retrieved his 
ill success, by procuring a force from Acarnania and Amphilochia, and 
putting to rout the army of the Ambracians, commanded by Spartan 
leaders. Two of the hostile generals, Eurylochus and Macarius, fell 
in the battle. The conquering Athenian pursued his advantage, 
surprised detachments of the Ambracians near Olpae, who were 
ignorant of the previous defeat, and cut them off with tremendous 
slaughter. After thus restoring the Athenian power in the west, the 
victorious general returned in triumph to Athens. 

The Athenians now began to project the conquest of Sicily, and Transactions 
sent forty ships thither with Eurymedon and Sophocles, desiring f^ t ^ e of 
them, in their course, to relieve the democratic party in Corcyra, who Pylus. 
were now hard pressed by their domestic foes. With these com- B. c. 425. 
manders they permitted Demosthenes to sail, without any nominal 
office, but with authority to exercise a control over the proceedings. 
He was anxious to execute a plan for fortifying Pylus, a deserted port 
of Messenia, and fixing there a garrison of Messenians, from Naupactus. 
The troops refused, however, to delay their progress, but were soon 
compelled, by a storm, to take refuge in the harbour. While they 
remained here, the soldiers, for their amusement, threw up fortifications, 
which they had refused to erect at the request of Demosthenes. As 



336 



SUCCESSES OF THE ATHENIANS. 



B. c. 429. soon as the work was completed, he determined to remain there, with 
five galleys, which were allowed him for his defence. Here he was 
soon besieged by the Lacedaemonians, whom he gallantly repulsed, 
though they were commanded by the celebrated Brasidas. Thus 
baffled, the Spartans turned the siege of Pylus into a blockade, and 
regularly invested it. Meanwhile, Eurymedon arrived to relieve it, 
and entering the harbour, defeated the fleet of the besiegers. At this 
time, 420 Spartans, with Helots, who had been chosen by lot from 
the troops, were in possession of Sphacteria, an island at the mouth of 
the harbour. These, in their turn, were now surrounded by naval 
forces, from which there appeared no hope of escaping. Alarmed at 
the danger of some of the most illustrious of the citizens, the magis- 
trates of Sparta came to the camp, and perceiving that no other hope 
of their deliverance was left, opened negotiations with the Athenians. 
A truce was granted by the generals, but not ratified by the Athenian 
people, who were instigated to reject the accommodation by the 
persuasions of Cleon. Nicias was sent to join the forces of Pylus, 
and aided by Demosthenes, he was successful. After a brave resist- 
ance, the isle of Sphacteria was taken, and all the Spartans who 
survived made prisoners. The commanders, except Eurymedon, who 
proceeded to Corcyra, returned to Athens with the captives, who 
ordered them to be kept in chains, with a threat that they should be 
put to death in case of an invasion of Attica by their countrymen. 
Successes of The Athenian ascendancy continued for some time rapidly to 
Athens. increase. Nicias made a descent on the shores of Corinth, and 
returned with his spoils. Anactorium was taken by the Athenian 
force at Naupactus, and the inhabitants expelled from their possessions. 
In the following spring, the isle of Cythera, governed by Spartan 
magistrates, and defended by Spartan soldiers, yielded to Autocles 
and Nicias. Thyrea, to which the remaining iEginetans had retired, 
was burnt, great part of its inhabitants slain, and the survivors, by a 
Termination ferocious decree, led out to slaughter. Meanwhile, the war in Corcyra 
of the contest was terminated with a catastrophe worthy of its origin. Eury- 
ia u>rcyra. me( ^ on an( j Sophocles surrounded the remaining aristocrats, and 
compelled them to surrender. The prisoners were placed, for a time, 
in the island of Ptychia, on condition that if any escaped, the whole 
should forfeit their claim to mercy. Thirsting for their blood, i the 
democratic party persuaded them to attempt an escape, by which they 
broke the terms of capitulation, and subjected themselves to the 
vengeance of the Athenian commanders. They were then delivered 
to their infamous deceivers, who, having first shut them up in one 
edifice, called on them to pass from it, one by one, through their ranks, 
and stabbed them as they passed, each selecting the object of his 
peculiar hatred for his victim. After sixty had been thus butchered, 
the rest closed the entrance of the house, and refused to leave it. 
Their foes then unroofed the building, and poured missile weapons on 
them from above, while they remained totally defenceless. Those who 



BATTLE OF DELIUM. 



337 



endured the misery of surviving this work of horror, killed themselves B « c - 425. 
during the night ; so that, in the morning, when the murderers entered 
the scene of their expected revenge, they found only the lifeless bodies 
of the captives, whom death had released from their fury. 

The Spartan affairs now seemed reduced to a state of hopelessness, ^ a e ir g Partan 
and the cause of Athens to be, in all parts, triumphant. The hopes improved by 
of Sparta, however, were soon revived by the courage, spirit, and Brasidas - 
virtue of Brasidas, who appears to have been endowed with the virtues 
without the vices peculiar to the Lacedaemonian character. He had 
already distinguished himself rather by merit than fortune, at the siege 
of Pylus. By his valour and policy he now procured the return of 
Megara to the alliance of Sparta, after it had revolted to the Athenians. 
He next, with a band of scarcely 5,000 men, marched into Thrace and 
Macedonia, procuring by his skill and power of conciliation, a safe 
passage through the hostile regions of Thessaly. By his policy he 
procured the accession of Arribaeus, king of Lyncestis, to the Spartan 
alliance. Next, in conjunction with Perdiccas, he marched to Acanthus, 
and being singly admitted into the city, won the people by his 
eloquence, to revolt from Athens, and form a treaty with him. 
Shortly after, he procured the citizens of Stageirus to declare for the 
Spartans. The important city of Amphipolis, commanding a rich 
territory and a noble river, was surrendered to him on his promise to 
respect the properties of the people, and allow to such as chose to 
retire, five days for their departure. Thucydides, the historian, came 
too late to relieve this port, but succeeded in preventing the seizure of 
Eion, a port at the mouth of the river. Notwithstanding the great 
success of Brasidas, he was regarded with so much envy at Sparta, 
that the government there refused his application for an increase of his 
forces. He still, however, continued his exertions with unabated 
vigour. All the cities of Acte, except Sane and Dium, yielded to his 
arms. He took Torone, one of the chief Chalcidian sea-ports, and 
became master of the neighbouring fortress of Lecythus, while the 
Athenians, attempting to revolutionize Boeotia, were completely de- Battle of 
feated by the people of that territory, at Delium. These fluctuations Delium ; 94 
of fortune inclined the Athenians to pacific measures, and they agreed B,C * " 
to a truce for a year, on the terms that each party should keep what Truce for a 
it had acquired, and that the dominion over the seas should be con- year ' 
ceded to Athens. 

This arrangement did not completely suspend the hostilities of the Operations 
two rival republics. Before it was known in Thrace, Brasidas had m ace * 
succeeded in disconnecting Scione from the Athenian cause ; on which, 
the citizens of Athens, by the instigation of Cleon, passed a decree, 
that the town should be invested, and all its inhabitants destroyed. 
Shortly after this event, the Spartan chief being deserted by his 
Macedonian allies, was compelled to retire ; but conducted his retreat 
in so masterly a manner, that it became almost a victory. 

Meanwhile Cleon had obtained the chief direction of affairs at 
[h. g.] z 



338 



DEATH OF CLEON. 



b. c. 424. Athens. He imputed the reverse of fortune which their arms had 
cieon recently experienced to the vengeance of the gods, on account of a 
expuSoJfof deficiency in purifying the consecrated isle of Delos, and urged them 
the Deiians. to expel thence all its unoffending inhabitants, and to appease heaven 
by solemn lustrations. The design was executed ; and the Deiians, 
forced from their homes, found an asylum on the iEolian coast, through 
cieon the charity of the Persian satrap Pharnaces. Cleon was now, how- 
tTvAristo- ever ' attac ^ e( ^ by a masterly hand. Aristophanes dared to hold him 
phanes. up to ridicule, in the play of Hie Knights ; in which, from the fears of 
the actors, the poet himself was obliged to perform the character 
intended for Cleon. The hazardous attempt was completely success- 
ful. Popular odium immediately fell on the object of this most 
caustic satire. His foes took advantage of the common feeling, to 
prefer a charge against him of secreting the public treasures, upon 
Fined. which he was convicted, and fined five talents. But the feebleness of 
his public opponent Nicias, and his own singular boldness, soon 
restored him to his wonted power. He caused all proposals tending 
to peace to be rejected, and a formidable expedition to be sent into 
Appointed to Thrace, of which he himself took the command, sailing, with the 
command flower of the Athenian vouth, for the scene of action. On his first 
arrival, he succeeded, during the absence of Brasidas, in taking Torone 
by surprise. But he was far indeed from possessing ability to oppose 
the Spartan commander. The skill of Brasidas compelled him re- 
luctantly to engage in a general battle near Amphipolis, in which he 
cieon was defeated and slain. The conqueror also fell mortally wounded in 
sbdn ated and * ne ac ti° n 5 an d onl y lived to hear that his army was victorious. His 
Death and death was not only a great disaster to Sparta, but also to all the 
character of Grecian republics. His personal bravery was only equalled by his 
Brasidas^ ^[]\ anc [ w isdom, while his humanity towards prisoners affords 

refreshing contrast to the usual conduct of his own countrymen, and 
of their foes. He was buried in Amphipolis, where the place of his 
sepulchre was ever regarded as sacred. A monument was erected 
over his ashes, and solemn honours were decreed to be every year paid 
to his memory. 

Peace The chief obstacle to peace was removed by the death of Cleon. 

AthlnTand Sparta was inclined to repose, by the loss of the ablest of her generals, 
Sparta. anc [ Nicias had the satisfaction of concluding a general treaty. By 
B.C. 421. arr angement, Sparta resigned Amphipolis without conditions, 
agreed that Acanthus, Stageirus, Scolus, Argilus, Spactolus, and 
Olynthus, should be suffered to join in the Athenian league, and agreed 
to procure the restoration of Panactum, which had been taken by the 
Boeotians. Athens consented to restore Pylus and the surrounding 
country, Cythera, Methone, Pteleum, and Atalanta to her rival. All 
prisoners were to be set at liberty without ransom. The garrison of 
Scione was to leave its fortress, and the people to be left to the mercy 
of the Athenians. Against these terms, the Boeotians, Corinthians, 
Eleians, and Megareans protested, but they met with the concurrence 



AEGIVE LEAGUE. 



339 



of a majority of the allies of Sparta. The treaty was confirmed by B.C. 421. 
solemn sacrifices. Columns were erected at Olympia, at Delphi, at the 
Isthmus, in the citadel of Athens, and in the Amyclaeum of Sparta, 
as monuments and pledges of the apparently felicitous union of the 
hostile powers. 

But the treaty thus concluded was not likely to be lasting. While 
it gave satisfaction to the two great contending powers, it left the 
smaller states occasion for murmuring. The Corinthians, who had 
originally fomented the war, were indignant that it should be brought 
to such a conclusion, and finding they had no hopes of altering the dis- 
position of the Lacedaemonians, determined on soliciting the aid of 
Argos. A league was speedily formed, in which Argos, Corinth, Argive 
Mantinaea, and Elis were the leading members. Meanwhile, jealousies lea § ue - 
were excited between Athens and Sparta, in consequence of the 
inability of the latter to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty. The 
garrison, after some hesitation, was withdrawn from Amphipolis ; but 
the people of that city protested against the transfer. The Boeotians 
declined to restore Pan actum, and when they, at length, agreed to 
evacuate its fortresses, destroyed them, and left them in ruins. 
Athens, on the other hand, insisted on holding Pylus, as a pledge for 
the performance of the still unexecuted conditions. At the earnest 
request of the Spartans, however, they consented to withdraw the 
Helots and Messenians from it, who were necessarily and peculiarly 
offensive to their neighbours, and suffered the Athenians alone to 
possess it. In taking possession of Scione, the citizens of Athens 
once more stained their reputation with a deed of horror, by sentencing 
to the sword all the men surrendered to their mercy, and reducing 
women and children to the condition of slaves. On the other hand, 
conceiving that they had incurred the displeasure of heaven by the 
expulsion of the Delians, they restored them all to their possessions. 

The new confederacy, of which Argos was the head, opened no Athenian 
small field for intrigues throughout Greece. A change of admi- confed eracy. 
nistration at Sparta had nearly given the whole weight to the Lace- B * °* ^ j ' 
daemonians, and placed them at the head of their old confederates, 
with the important addition of the Argives. But the accomplishment 
of this scheme, which would have necessarily been destructive to the 
Athenian preponderance, was prevented by a great stroke of policy, 
the author of which was Alcibiades. He perceived that the Argives 
had altogether mistaken the real state of parties in making their hasty 
alliance with Lacedasmon, and that they might easily be awakened to 
a perception of their error. He had personal friends at Argos, whom 
he so effectually employed, that deputies from that city, as well as 
from Mantinaea and Elis, shortly arrived in Attica to negotiate a general 
league. Alarmed at this circumstance, the Lacedaemonians sent an 
embassy to Athens, to remonstrate against the measure, which would 
place their rival precisely in the situation they had aspired to occupy. 
The ambassadors were entrusted with full powers, and declared their 

z 2 



340 



WAR BETWEEN ARGOS AND SPARTA. 



3. c. 420. commission to be thus extensive in their interview with the council. 

Alcibiades persuaded them to contradict themselves in the general 
assembly of the people, and to affirm that their instructions only 
allowed them to agree to certain specific conditions. He then tinned 
against them the treachery he had prompted, and thus threw discredit 
on their mission, and the national character of their masters. Although 
an embassy was sent to Lacedsemon, on the advice of Nicias, in which 
that pacific negociator was included, it returned without success, as the 
terms demanded by Athens could not be complied with by her rival. 
Alcibiades then succeeded in his utmost wish ; an alliance was con- 
cluded with Argos and Elis for a hundred years ; and Athens became 
the head of a confederacy, in which the leading states of the Pelopon- 
nesus itself were included. 
War between This event did not, however, occasion the renewal of direct hos- 
Sp£t 3 a and tilities between Athens and Sparta. The treaty between these states 
continued nominally in force, although, by both parties, it had been 
virtually broken. But war between the Lacedaemonians and the 
Argives soon arose in consequence of the recent league, and a dispute 
between the people of Elis and Sparta, contributed to heighten the 
animosities which already existed. The people of Lepreum having 
refused to pay the accustomed tribute to the Eleans, appealed to 
Sparta, and were declared by the latter free, and protected by a 
Lacedaemonian force. This conduct the Eleans had never forgiven. 
They now, as presiding over the Olympic festival, accused the Spartans 
of adopting hostile proceedings after the conclusion of the armistice, 
and procured them to be amerced in a fine of two thousand minae. 
The Lacedaemonians refused either to pay the sum, or to restore 
Lepreum ; on which the Eleans excluded them from partaking in the 
solemn games, of which they were the directors. A Spartan, however, 
named Leichas, being desirous of contending in the chariot race, 
caused a chariot to be entered on the lists, as belonging to the Boeotians, 
and, under this disguise, obtained one of the prizes. On this success, 
his vanity would not allow him to keep the secret, and he stepped 
forward to crown the victorious driver with a chaplet. His boldness 
was checked by a blow from one of the officers, who, in the execution 
of their duty, knew no distinction of persons. This insult passed un- 
revenged at the time, but it was not of a nature to be forgotten. 
Sparta, thus incited, was, at length, aroused to open war by the op- 
pression of her faithful allies, the Epidaureans, whom the Argives, on 
the most frivolous pretences, had invaded. Agis, with a considerable 
force of citizens and Helots, took the field about the middle of the 
summer, when he was joined by the Tegaeans, by a large force of 
Boeotians, by considerable bands from Corinth, and by a number of 
recruits from Sicyon, Epidaurus, Megara, and Pallene. The Argives 
were supported by the troops of their allies, the people of Mantinaea 
and Elis. 

The movements of Agis brought his adversaries into a situation, in 



BATTLE OF M ANTING A. 



341 



which it appeared impossible that they should escape destruction. B. C. 420. 
But from this peril they were extricated by the bold determination of 
Thrasyllus, and Alciphon, Argives of high rank, who went unattended 
to the tent of the Spartan king, and pledged themselves to induce 
their countrymen to join in the Spartan alliance. They succeeded in 
their mission ; a truce for four months was proclaimed, and Agis re- Truce 
treated. So little, however, were the Argives aware of the danger A e r ^s e ^ d 
they had escaped, that they accused Thrasyllus of treason, in having Sparta, 
deprived them of a certain conquest over their foes. They confiscated 
his estate, and only spared his life from reverence for an altar, to which 
he had fled for protection. Soon after the retreat of the Spartans, a 
thousand Athenian infantry, and three hundred cavalry, under the 
command of Nicostratus and Laches, arrived at Argos. 

The conduct of Agis in permitting the foe to escape him, naturally 
drew on him the censures of the Spartans. They were on the point 
of condemning him to the payment of a heavy fine, and the destruc- 
tion of his house, when he entreated the opportunity of effacing the 
stain cast on him, by again leading the army. His request was 
granted, and he took the command ; but, with the aid of ten coun- 
cillors, without whose concurrence he was not to lead his troops 
beyond the Spartan boundaries. 

The Eleans now urged the allies to recover Lepreum, but they 
preferred attempting to gain possession of Tegaea, which so offended 
the soldiers sent from Elis that they peaceably retired to their own 
city. Tegaea was soon protected with a force which rendered the 
design of the allies abortive, and the Spartan army advanced into the 
territory of the Mantinaeans. 

The armies now encamped within sight of each other, the Argives Battle of 
occupying the most advantageous position, from which Agis desired to Mantinaea. 
draw them. For this purpose he diverted a stream which descended B * °* 
from the mountains, so as to cause it to overflow the country. Be- 
lieving, however, that they were resolved to maintain the situation 
they occupied, he was returning towards the hills, when he met them 
in order of battle. So admirable was the Lacedaemonian discipline, 
that his troops, although taken entirely by surprise, formed instantly, 
and marched slowly on, in perfect phalanx, to the sound of their 
solemn but inspiring music. Their firm and deliberate valour was 
successful, the Argive and allied forces were completely defeated, and 
this brilliant success restored the Lacedaemonian character in Greece, 
and with it that power which character alone can bestow among an 
energetic and thinking people. 

The immediate consequence of the battle of Mantinaea, was to Consequence 
transfer the government of Argos from the people to an oligarchy, ° f ^"JJlJ"" 
and to cause its defection from the alliance with Athens. A treaty 
was concluded between the Argives and Spartans, and the Mantinaeans 
soon after yielded to the victors. Thus, all the hopes of Athens 
resulting from the new confederacy were destroyed, and her rival ad- 



342 



ATHENIAN EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 



B. c. 417. vanced in glory and in strength. But the chiefs of Lacedeemon were 
unequal to the improvement of their successes. A second revolution 
soon took place in Argos, which caused the restoration of the people 
to their rights, and the expulsion of the nobles. Alcibiades personally 
assisted in completing this change. Yet the Spartans remained 
inactive : they suffered the Athenians to invade and subdue their 
allies, the Melians, without offering them the least assistance ; and 
after the surrender of Melos, the Athenians, with savage cruelty, put 
to death all the men capable of bearing arms, and reduced the women 
and children to slavery. 
The Sicilian While the Lacedaemonians remained thus torpid, the Athenians 
pr^ected! 1 were elated with brilliant hopes of extended conquest, which proved 
eventually more injurious than any inactivity which might have para- 
lyzed their energies. Dreams of the conquest of Sicily, and even of 
yet more extended fields of glory and spoil, were now enticing them 
to their ruin. They had, in the course of the war, sent naval forces 
to aid theLeontines against the Syracusans; but these expeditions had 
been planned with little interest, and attended with little success. 
The restless ambition and high spirit of enterprise of Alcibiades, 
incited by the magnificent idea of conquering Sicily, imparted a new 
feeling to his fellow-citizens. An application from the people of 
Egesta, against the Saluntines and Syracusans, was the immediate 
occasion of the splendid and fatal visions with which the Athenians 
were deluded. The Egestans sent an embassy to Athens, representing 
themselves possessed of the most ample treasures to defray the 
expenses of warfare. To ascertain the truth of this declaration, am- 
bassadors were sent to Egesta, who returned with sixty talents in 
silver, and the most brilliant tales concerning the wealth which they 
had inspected. In vain did Nicias remonstrate ; the expedition was 
resolved on ; sixty galleys were ordered to be made ready ; and the 
command was entrusted to Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus. 
Departure of About midsummer, the immense preparations were completed. 
siciiy e . et f ° r When all was prepared for sailing, solemn prayers were offered to the 
b. c. 41 5. gods for success, the navigators in every ship poured libations into the 
sea, and drank to the felicitous issue of the enterprise out of golden 
cups, while the navy majestically moved from the shore to the sound 
of the paean. 

Movement The fleet first sailed for Corcyra, and was joined by vessels from the 
of the fleet, allies. The whole navy consisted of one hundred and thirty-four 
trireme galleys, of which a hundred were Athenian, and the remainder 
contributed by the people of the minor states, chiefly by the Chians. 
After the commanders had been refused admittance into several ports, 
they were allowed a market at Khegium, though not admitted within 
the city. Meanwhile, they received the report of commissioners, whom 
they had sent to ascertain the true amount of the boasted treasures of 
Egesta, whose answer destroyed all the golden dreams which had been 
entertained respecting its resources. On finding that the people of 



CONDEMNATION OF ALCIBIADES, 



343 



Athens had been deceived by the allies, for whose succour they had B. C. 415. 
sent out their armament, the commanders entertained different opinions 
respecting the proper measures to be taken. Nicias proposed that 
they should relieve Egesta and return ; Lamachus, that they should 
sail at once to Syracuse : while Alcibiades urged the propriety of en- 
deavouring to attach the Sicilian states to their cause by negotiation ; 
and that, afterwards, they should direct their arms against the Syra- 
cusan power. The last advice was followed. On a message from 
Camarina, that the people of that city were ready to unite with the 
Athenians, the fleet sailed thither ; but the chiefs, finding the invitation 
to have been made prematurely, returned to Catana, their former 
position. Here they found the Salaminian galley, bearing an order Aidbiadgs 
for the immediate return of Alcibiades, and other officers, to answer tome!* 1 
charges which had, before their departure, been advanced against them. 
This order they obeyed; but Alcibiades found means to escape at 
Thurium. On the arrival of the Salaminian galley, he was condemned 
to death in his absence. 

It soon became manifest, that the onlv chief really suited to the Feeble 
conduct of the expedition, was removed from it. Feebleness and irre- ^idas?* ° f 
solution marked the steps taken by Nicias and his remaining colleague. 
The season of action was wasted in a fruitless negotiation with 
Himera, the capture of Hyccara, and the seizure of a great number of 
defenceless Sicels. As the people of Egesta were unable to fulfil 
their promises of pecuniary aid, Nicias raised a large sum by the sale 
of his unhappy captives, among whom was a girl named Lais, said to 
have been the person afterwards so famed for her seductive attractions. 

On the approach of winter, however, the Athenian commanders 
were roused to a degree of energy, of which they had hitherto dis- 
played no symptoms. They invested Syracuse, and seized on a post 
of great advantage in the vicinity of the capital. This movement 
excited no small alarm in the minds of the Syracusans, who perceived 
that the great strength of the position occupied by their foes precluded 
all hope of carrying it by storm. The next day, the Athenians drew 
out in order of battle, and succeeded in compelling the Syracusans to 
take refuge within their walls. But Nicias and Lamachus were not 
prepared to take any vigorous measures for improving their successes. 
They left their position, sailed quietly to Catana, laid up the fleet, and 
dispersed the army in winter quarters. 

During the interval which the winter afforded, the people of Measures 
Syracuse took the most prudent measures for averting the dangers of syracusans 
the expected siege. Happily for them, Hermocrates, a man of great 
ability and patriotism, was the chief director of their councils. 
Chosen commander-in-chief, with two colleagues, he proceeded to 
extend the fortifications of the city, and to place garrisons in the forts 
in its neighbourhood. He next endeavoured to win over allies to the 
Syracusan cause, and succeeded in obtaining from the people of 
Camarina, a promise that they would remain neutral. But his chief 



344 



SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 



Preparations 
for the siege 
of Syracuse. 



b. c. 415. measure was the appointment of an embassy to Greece, to solicit aid 
from the foes of Athens. 

His deputies first proceeded to Corinth, by the citizens of which 
place Syracuse had been originally founded. Here they experienced 
a most favourable reception ; ambassadors were appointed to accom- 
pany them to Sparta, and add weight to their requests, before the 
Lacedaemonian senate. Happily for their mission, they found Alci- 
biades, who had been received with cordiality at Lacedsemon, ready to 
support them with all his eloquence. Endowed with consummate 
abilities, and necessarily possessed of the most accurate knowledge of 
the plans and the. resources of the expedition, of which he had been 
the chief adviser, he decided the hesitating councils of the Spartan 
magistrates. They consented to send Gylyppus to command the 
troops which Corinth could supply, and they also resolved to fortify 
Decela, and to renew the war with Athens. 

Meanwhile, the Athenian commanders in Sicily prepared for the 
intended siege. Finding the mountaineers ready to revolt against 
Syracuse, they engaged them in their cause, and obtained from them 
money and provisions. They procured horses to afford them cavalry, 
of which they were greatly in need. Stone, iron, and other materials, 
they also succeeded in collecting. Early in the spring they moved 
their forces, gained the advantage in a skirmish, took the town of 
Centoripa, and ravaged the surrounding regions. On returning from 
Catana, they found reinforcements and supplies from Athens, consisting 
of 250 horse soldiers, 300 talents in silver, and a considerable quantity 
of military stores. On receiving these, they determined immediately 
to sail for Syracuse. 

The first measures of the Athenian generals were taken with great 
judgment, and prosecuted with great success. They landed at Leon, 
near Syracuse, and took possession of the hill Epipolse, commanding 
the city, before the enemy knew that they had left their position at 
Catana. Immediately, however, on observing that the forces had 
attained the height, the Syracusans attacked them with great vigour, 
but were soon repulsed by the steady discipline of the Athenians, and 
forced to retreat within the city. The next day the citizens declined 
renewing the combat. Their foes improved the occasion by fortifying 
the height of Labdalum among the steeps of the mountain, and com- 
mencing the circumvallation of the city, This they succeeded in 
completing on the northern side, having repelled another attempt of 
the Syracusans to impede them. On the southern side, Hermocrates 
carried out a work from the wall, to break the line, but it was shortly 
after surprised by the Athenians, and its garrison forced to retire. 
Another work erected with the same design occasioned a fierce contest, 
in which Lamachus was killed, and Epipolse would have been taken, 
had not Nicias, who was afflicted with sickness, ordered fire to be set 
to the outworks, and thus checked the progress of the enterprising 
troops. After this engagement, the Athenians were permitted to 



Commence- 
ment of the 
siege of 
Syracuse. 

b. c. 414 



THE SPARTANS ASSIST THE SYEACUSANS." 



345 



continue their circumvallation for some time without further re- b. c. 414. 
sistance. 

Everything seemed now conspiring to favour the Athenian arms. Despondency 
Despair crushed the energies, and faction divided the resources of the at s y racuse - 
people of Syracuse. Many of the cities of Sicily, believing the 
Athenians must succeed, came to offer them their alliance. Repeated 
propositions were made in the public assemblies of the Syracusans for 
a capitulation to their besiegers. While affairs were in this critical Arrival of 
situation, Gongylus, a Corinthian commander, arrived in the harbour, a 3 n c d ngylus 
and revived the almost expiring hopes of the people, by assurances of Gylippus. 
immediate support from Lacedsemon and Corinth. Nicias, meanwhile, 
remained in a singular state of inaction. Gylippus, who now arrived 
in the neighbourhood with 5,000 soldiers, was actually suffered to pass 
Epipolae by the same road through which the Athenians themselves 
had attained its summits. The lately dispirited people of Syracuse 
went out to meet and welcome him, and escorted him into the town 
without the least opposition from their foes. Willing to show his 
confidence of success, he sent a herald to the Athenians, with a 
message, that if they would quit Sicily, he would allow them a truce 
of five days for their peaceable departure. To this bold intimation 
no reply was given, nor was any attempt made to show, by action, the 
futility of the defiance. The Spartan general was allowed to choose 
his own position, and pitched his camp in the quarter of Temenites, 
on an elevation suited to his plan of warfare. 

The next day Gylippus drew up his troops in order of battle before 
the works of Nicias. Perceiving that general still passive, he sent a 
detachment, which took possession of Epipolae, and destroyed the 
Athenian garrison. After this, Nicias stood on the defensive, and 
erected three forts near the southern entrance of the great harbour, for 
the protection of his forces. Two actions soon ensued, in the first of 
which he gained the advantage, but in the second, was compelled to 
retire. He was about the same time dispirited by the arrival of the 
squadron of Spartan and Corinthian ships, and the capture of an 
Athenian galley at the mouth of the harbour. So completely, indeed, 
were affairs changed since the appearance of Gylippus, that Nicias 
sent home a letter to Athens, in which, after stating the difficulties of 
his situation, he implored that he might be allowed to resign the 
command, and impressed on the people that either the forces must be 
recalled, or increased to double their number. This remonstrance, as 
far as it related to the recal of Nicias, or the troops, was in vain. 
The Athenians could not endure the frustration of hopes which they 
had cherished with so great an ardour. They commanded Nicias to 
remain, with Menander and Euthydemus as his colleagues, sent Eury- 
medon with ten vessels, and twenty talents of silver, to reinforce him, 
and prepared to despatch Demosthenes for the same purpose, with 
larger succours. 

But while Demosthenes was on his voyage, the Athenians in Sicily 



346 



REVERSES OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE. 



Reverses 
of the 
Athenians 



Naval 

engagement 



b. c. 414. were suffering a continuance of reverses. Gylippus took the bold 
measure of causing an attack to be made on the Athenian fleet, while 
he led the infantry towards the three forts occupied by the army on the 
southern side of the harbour. In the naval action which ensued, the 
Syracusans were beaten, after a hard contest ; but, while the troops of 
Nicias were drawn to the shores to assist the fleet, Gylippus took their 
three fortresses, almost without experiencing resistance. Thus large 
quantities of stores, ammunition, magazines, masts of vessels, and three 
ships laid up on the shore, fell into his hands. He demolished one of 
the fortresses, placed garrisons in the other two of them, and drew up 
a squadron near them, by winch the supplies would be prevented from 
reaching the Athenian camp. New allies were induced, by the suc- 
cesses of the people of Syracuse, to assist them with money, recruits, 
and arms. Agatharcus forced his way through the harbour with ten 
vessels, one of which he despatched to the Peloponnesus, and with the 
remainder intercepted store-ships and transports, which were proceeding 
to reinforce the Athenians. And Gylippus, hoping to strike a decisive 
blow before Demosthenes could arrive, made preparations for another 
attack on the hitherto victorious navy. 

When the fleet was ready for action, the Spartan commander drew 
out his land forces, and made a feigned attack on the Athenian lines, 
by which he diverted the attention of the generals from the scene where 
his real operations were commencing. 

At the period agreed on, the fleet of the Syracusans, consisting of 
eighty vessels, moved towards the naval station of their foes, who 
hastily manned seventy-five galleys to resist them. An obstinate 
contest ensued, in which neither party gained a decisive advantage, 
but two Athenian vessels were destroyed. The event of this doubtful 
engagement was exceedingly dispiriting to the Athenians, who had 
long been accustomed to know no rivals on the ocean. Instead of 
meditating conquest, they sought to provide for the security of their 
marine, by a kind of naval fortification, consisting of a line of merchant- 
vessels, bearing instruments of great weight, which might sink any 
hostile ship attempting to pass them. The day after the battle was 
occupied by these preparations, which the Syracusans did not impede. 
On the following morning the engagement was renewed, and continued 
for a long time with dubious success. At length the Syracusans 
retreated in good order, and the Athenians retired, little expecting a 
renewal of the contest. But the troops of Gylippus, having taken a 
hasty refreshment, prepared for them, returned to the ships, sailed 
forward, attacked their foes while wholly unprepared for combat, and 
compelled them to retire with loss behind their floating fortresses. 
While the hearts of the Athenians were sinking within them on 
SiT 0Sthenes tnese repeated misfortunes, Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with 
a force calculated once more to inspire them with confidence of victory. 
They saw with joy seventy-three galleys majestically entering the port, 
with 5,000 heavy-armed troops, and light-armed infantry and slaves, 



Arrival of 



rith 
succours. 



RETREAT OF THE ATHENIANS FROM SYRACUSE. 



347 



which swelled the total number to nearly 20,000 soldiers. The sight B. c. 414. 
of this new force, so fresh and so vigorous, struck the Syracusans with 
terror. To them the resources of Athens, which could equip a second 
armament thus noble, seemed boundless. The effort was, indeed, 
astonishing, under the present circumstances of Athens. By the 
fortifications of Decelea, the whole of Attica was overawed, and the 
Spartans enabled to ravage its fields. The city was almost in a state 
of siege ; it was changed from an imperial commonwealth to a 
necessitous garrison. And yet such was its power, such the magic of 
its name among the allies, that it was enabled to raise, as by enchant- 
ment, one of the greatest fleets which ever left the Grecian shores ; 
and such was still the spirit of enterprise in its people, that they chose 
to employ this mighty force in a scheme of distant conquest, hitherto 
unsuccessful, rather than to use it against their domestic invaders. 

On the arrival of Demosthenes, the generals resolved to attack Attack on 
Epipolas, the possession of which by the foe, was a great obstacle to p ' p ° 
the progress of the siege. As, however, the place was exceedingly 
strong, as well from the advantages of its natural position as its 
fortifications, there seemed little hope of effecting its capture, unless 
by surprise. At the hour of repose, the army was set in motion, 
seized one of the outworks, and advanced to the second line of 
fortresses. But the garrison was now alarmed, and the troops under 
Gylippus advanced to oppose the progress of their foes. Still the 
Athenians proceeded with great vigour, climbing the steeps, and 
repulsing the Syracusans, till they were met by a body of Boeotians, 
who firmly opposed them, and increased the confusion, which, from 
the declivity and the unevenness of the ground, had already prevailed 
through the ranks. Dreadful carnage ensued ; the moon gave an 
uncertain light, which only served to confuse the Athenians ; in their 
ignorance they fell on each other, and in their disunion, suffered their 
watch-word to be learned by their enemies. Broken, fatigued, and 
bewildered, they endeavoured to retreat, but the flight was attended 
with a series of disasters. Many perished amidst the rocks, dashed to 
pieces in falling from the heights ; many were killed by the enemy in 
the steep and narrow roads ; and those who escaped to the woods 
were found and cut to pieces. The Athenians lost 2,000 soldiers, 
whose bodies were the next day given to them, on the usual request of 
the defeated. 

On this sad disappointment, Demosthenes proposed the immediate Determina- 
return of the forces to Athens. But Nicias, who had secret negotia- l^JSS 
tions with a party friendly to his cause within the walls of Syracuse, to retire, 
at first earnestly pressed the continuance of the siege. At length, 
finding that the troops were wasting away with sickness, and that 
Gylippus was receiving new succours, he assented to the proposals for 
retiring. Measures for this purpose were taken, with the secrecy 
requisite for their success ; but an eclipse of the moon prevented the 
embarkation, for which all the preparations were completed. The 



348 



RETREAT OF THE ATHENIANS FROM SYRACUSE. 



Distress 
of the 
Athenians 



Attempt to 
escape, and 
naval defeat 



b. c. 414. augurs being consulted as to the import of the phenomenon, declared 
that it indicated the will of the gods, that the fleet should not sail 
until three times nine days were past. On this, Nicias, as superstitious 
as he was just, refused to consent to any removal until that period 
should be concluded. 

The design of retiring inspired the Syracusans with additional 
boldness. They resolved to prevent the retreat of the enemy, and 
accordingly compelled the Athenian fleet to meet their navy. Taking 
advantage of the extension of the Athenian line, they broke through 
the centre, and defeated the armament after a fierce contest, in which 
Eurymedon fell. But a detachment of the land forces, sent by 
Gylippus to prevent the landing of the crews was met by part of the 
infantry of Athens, and compelled to retreat, after considerable 
slaughter. This advantage was, however, a very inadequate com- 
pensation for the naval defeat sustained by the late masters of 
the seas. 

Want of provisions now began to occasion great distress among the 
Athenian forces. It was, therefore, determined to withdraw the 
armament, with whatever risk it might be attended. Demosthenes, 
Menander, and Euthydemus, led on the navy to force a passage through 
the entrance of the harbour. They had succeeded in taking the vessels 
which blockaded the port, when the Syracusan fleet advanced in order 
of battle. A terrible combat now ensued, in which the Syracusans 
obtained a decisive victory, and such was the despondency of the 
Athenians, that when Demosthenes and Nicias proposed that they 
should all embark on board their remaining vessels, which were still 
superior in number to the Syracusan fleet, they refused, offering to 
pursue any course by land, but alleging that at sea they were fated to 
Retreat from destruction. It was the eve of the festival of Heracles, when no 
persuasions could induce the Syracusans to march ; but the opportunity 
was lost through a stratagem of Hermocrates, who sent one of his 
emissaries, under pretence of friendship, to the Athenians, to advise 
Nicias not to move that night, as the Syracusans lay in ambush to 
destroy him. He believed the intelligence, and remained that night 
and the next day taking measures for retreating. While he thus 
delayed, Hermocrates and Gylippus burnt the whole of the Athenian 
fleet, seized the passes of the country, guarded all the paths through 
the mountains, broke down bridges, and spread cavalry over the plain, 
so that there could be no passage without a combat. On the third 
day the march commenced, in agony and despair. No sooner did the 
soldiers move, than all the slaves and attendants deserted, so that they 
were reduced to the necessity of carrying their own baggage and pro- 
visions. Nicias, greater in adversity than ever he had been in 
prosperous fortune, still strove to animate the Athenians, who 
marched in two divisions, with the baggage in the centre, Nicias 
commanding the van, and Demosthenes the rear. They were so 
harassed by the enemy from the rear, and found so many obstacles in 



■•yracuse. 



CAPTURE OF THE ATHENIAN GENERALS. 



349 



front, that their progress was exceedingly slow, and every day added B. c. 414. 
to their distresses. They now resolved to change the direction of 
their march, and to proceed by Gela and Camarina, through a more 
circuitous and more level road. The change was effected in the night, 
and in the movement, the division commanded by Demosthenes was 
separated from that under Nicias. The former troop being unable to 
reach their comrades, marched till they came to the brook Erineus, 
where they were overtaken by the Sicilian cavalry. The Syracusan 
infantry now came up, and the Athenians were surrounded. After Surrender 
defending themselves with great bravery, they were reduced by losses, sthenS?" 
hunger, and despair, to surrender, on the mere condition that their b. c. 413. 
lives should be spared ; and were, to the number of 6,000, conducted 
to Syracuse. 

Meanwhile, Nicias crossed the Erineus, and encamped on an elevated 
position beyond it. Here he was informed, by some of the enemy's 
horse, who called to him to surrender, of the fate of his colleague, 
which at first he refused to believe, but soon ascertained, beyond 
question, through a messenger whom he was permitted to send to 
make inquiry. On the confirmation of the melancholy tidings, he 
offered to pay the Syracusans all the expenses of the war, if the troops 
under his command might be allowed to quit Sicily in safety. The 
Sicilians having rejected this offer, surrounded Nicias, but declined 
coming to a close engagement, contmuing dreadfully to harass his 
troops with missile weapons. Thirst and hunger compelled him to 
make an effort to escape, and at midnight he began silently to with- 
draw his forces. But the enemy discovered his intention, and rushed 
to arms. He then with his forces, excepting three hundred, (who 
broke through their foes, but were afterwards taken) remained in the 
camp until the dawn, when he gained the banks of the river Assinarus, 
which there ran through a steep and rocky channel. Extreme thirst 
maddened his troops — they forgot then discipline — rushed down to 
the stream, and while death pressed on them from behind, drank of 
the waters with fatal eagerness. Meanwhile the light-armed Syra- 
cusan troops gained the opposite bank, and thus surrounded the 
miserable Athenians in the craggy bed of the river. Numbers were 
slain ; some righting with desperate valour, others chinking the bloody 
stream, half choked with the bodies of their fellows. At length, 
seeing all further resistance .hopeless, Nicias surrendered himself to Surrender 
Gylippus, and his surviving troops were made prisoners. 

The two Athenian generals now experienced the atrocious revenge Fate of the 
of the Syracusans. They solemnly decreed the death of Nicias and ea -^ tlYes - 
Demosthenes, who fell immediately by the hands of the public execu- 
tioner. The fate of the soldiers taken was more dreadful, because 
their misery was of longer duration. The slaves were sold by auction, 
the freemen confined to a quarry in the hill Epipolse, without shelter 
from the burning sun, or the chilling air of the night, and with food 
scarcely sufficient to protract a wretched breathing-time in this their 



350 



DECLINE OF THE ATHENIAN POWER. 



B.C. 413. living grave. Those who died were left to putrify amidst their still 
existing comrades. The survivors were, after seventy days of horror, 
indulged by being sold to private masters. The fate of the residue of 
the Athenians is doubtful. Some of the captives, who became the pro- 
perty of individuals, met with a gentler destiny. They are said to have 
conciliated kindness by their ability to repeat the verses of Euripides, 
whose soft, flowing, and tender strains were better calculated to win 
the Sicilian, than the more majestic works of his nobler rivals. This 
tale affords the only gleam of humanity to be discerned amidst the 
complicated horrors with which the narrative of the expedition to Sicily 
is crowded. 

Reception of The intelligence of these dreadful calamities was not credited when 
Athens* at ® rs * reached Athens. It was only by degrees that the astonished 
citizens learned the full extent of their misfortune. Grief, rage, and 
terror, alternately agitated then bosoms. At length, their passionate 
feelings had subsided, and they began to seek resolution from despair. 
They retrenched their public expenses, strove to renew their navy, 
and appointed a council of elders to examine all measures before they 
should be proposed in the popular assembly. But no prudence or 
Revolt of wisdom could prevent the dependent states of Athens from revolting 
her allies. £. om j^. j n ^ Q^gogQ f fortunes. A part of the Lesbians and 
B * C * ' Eubceans offered their services to Sparta, and it soon became evident, 
that the Athenian power had been withered for ever in one mighty 
and vain exertion. The naval force which had acquired complete 
dominion over the seas, was totally destroyed ; and the Peloponnesian 
fleets now sailed round every coast without a rival. The flower of 
the Athenian youth had perished; and though some gleams of 
prosperity yet remained for Athens, her glories, as the imperial republic 
of Greece, had vanished for ever, 
interference The Grecian cities in Asia, which had been hitherto tributary to 
of rissa- Athens, now manifested strong; svmptoms of a desire to throw off the 

phernes m » i 

the affairs yoke. Mutual interests consequently united the Lacedaemonians ana 
b ^S'l Tissaphemes, the satrap of Sardis, in an alliance most dangerous to 
the existence of Athens. But while revolt seemed spreading in 
every direction, and danger threatened the Athenians from every side, 
the state of their affairs was greatly changed by the decline of the 
power of Alcibiades in Sparta, the shameful order of the Lacedae- 
monians for his murder, and his retreat to the court of Tissaphemes, 
to which these occurrences speedily led. From this period, Alcibiades 
appears to have been uniform in his exertions in behalf of the Athenian 
cause. For the present, he persuaded Tissaphemes to temporise, to 
decline effecting the ruin of Athens, and to relax in his efforts to serve 
the Peloponnesian cause. His intrigues, at length, effected his recal, 
after an obligarchy had obtained the direction of the government of 
Athens, and had been expelled thence by popular champions. Before 
his return, he once more raised the character, and, in some degree, 
restored the naval superiority of Athens, by a series of most brilliant 



DECLINE OF THE ATHENIAN POWER. 



351 



successes. We refer our readers to his life, for a more minute detail B. o. 411. 

of the occurrences of Grecian history, in which he was the principal 

actor. 

While Alcibiades was raising the fame of the Athenian arms by Spartan 
repeated victories, the Lacedaemonians gained a great advantage by a SJ§J CyrSu 
fresh negotiation with Persia. Artaxerxes, advancing in years, resolved 
to commit the chief administration of the provinces, bordering on the 
Grecian seas, to his son Cyrus. Before the youthful prince left the 
capital, to execute the trust thus committed to him, ambassadors who 
were at the court of his father from Sparta, obtained his ear, and 
completely won him to favour their cause. He came, therefore, to 
Sardis, with prepossessions friendly to Lacedaamon, and hostile to the 
Athenians. At the time of his arrival, the commander of the Spartan 
fleet for the year was one exactly calculated to confirm the impressions 
of an oriental prince : Lysander was bold, yet crafty ; proud, yet 
cringing ; valiant, yet luxurious ; equally fitted to solicit or to com- 
mand, to labour or to enjoy. He immediately visited the prince, and 
experienced a most gracious reception. Through his means a treaty 
was concluded with Persia, by which the king stipulated that he 
would allow thirty Attic minse for the pay of every galley engaged in 
the war against Athens. Defeated in his endeavours to procure a 
much larger allowance, Lysander took a favourable occasion after 
supper, on his royal host making use of liberal expressions towards 
him, to request that an obolus a day should be added to each seaman's 
wages. His desire was readily granted, and not only gave high satis- 
faction to the mariners, but was calculated to occasion large desertions 
from the Athenian fleet when opportunity should offer. 

These circumstances were unknown at Athens when Alcibiades m success of 
sailed from the Piraeus. His force consisted of fifteen hundred heavy- fleets^* 161 "* 11 
armed infantry, a hundred and fifty horse, and a hundred trireme 
galleys. After defeating the Andrians, but leaving their city, which 
was too strong to be reduced, he sailed for Samos, where news of 
Lysander's success excited in his mind considerable alarm. He 
dreaded the effects of Persian gold, not of Persian arms. Distressed for 
money, he left the fleet in order to raise it, leaving strict orders with 
Antiochus, the second in command, that he should not engage in his 
absence. These directions were disobeyed ; Antiochus defied Lysander, b. c. 407. 
and was defeated near the headland of Notium. This victory of the 
Spartans, of no great importance in itself, was, in the highest degree, 
injurious to Athens, by directing popular fury against her ablest chief- 
tain. Alcibiades was superseded, and ten generals, with Conon at 
their head, were appointed to the command of the naval and military 
forces of the republic. 

Conon, who was engaged in prosecuting the siege of Andros, was Naval 
immediately directed to hasten to Samos, and take the command of uSdSomion. 
the fleet. Finding, on his arrival, that the forces under his direction 
were not animated by a spirit which could encourage him to seek a 



352 



SEA-FIGHT OF ARGINUS^. 



B, c. 407. battle, lie divided the navy into squadrons, with which he collected 
contributions, and made prizes. But Callicratidas, who had super- 
seded Lysander, resolved to prevent the mischief with which this 
mode of warfare was attended. After taking Methymene, in Lesbos, 
he pursued the Athenian fleet to Mitylene, took or destroyed thirty 
galleys, and compelled the remainder to seek refuge beneath the for- 
tresses. Here he besieged Conon by sea, while the Laconian infantry 
invested Mitylene by land. But the Athenian commander, though 
closely blockaded, found means to send a vessel home with intelligence 
of his perilous condition. The people of Athens immediately prepared 
to relieve him, with a vigour astonishing, after their repeated losses. 
They equipped and manned a hundred and ten galleys, on board which, 
not only the citizens capable of bearing arms, but even men of the 
dignity of knights, who had always been exempt from naval services, 
were collected. Meanwhile the situation of Conon became more 
alarming. Diomedon, another of the ten officers lately appointed, 
while coming to his assistance with twelve ships, was intercepted, 
and ten of his vessels taken. But while all things seemed to promise 
Callicratidas an easy triumph, he received intelligence that a large 
Athenian armament was approaching. Detaching, therefore, fifty ships 
to continue the blockade, under Etonicus, he sailed with a hundred 
and twenty to meet the more formidable enemy. He came up with 
the fleet, which was commanded by the colleagues of Conon, among 
the islands of Arginusse, near Lesbos, and, failing in an attempt to 
surprise it, he soon found that its numbers were superior to his own. 
Hernon, the master of his vessel, advised him not to risk an engage- 
sea-fis:ht of ment under such a disadvantage ; but he replied, in a truly laconic 
B r gl Q 405 spirit, " Sparta will not miss me if I fall, but my flight must disgrace 
her." The contest was long and obstinate, both while the fleets pre- 
served their order, and after the line, on both sides, had been broken. 
At length, the galley of Callicratidas, striking with its beak an 
Athenian vessel, he fell overboard at the shock, and perished in the 
water. By his fall the event of the engagement was decided. The 
Peloponnesians fled in disorder, and left their foes in possession of a 
victory, purchased by the loss of many soldiers, and thirty-five galleys. 
Relief of After this brilliant success, it was determined that the great body 
of the fleet should sail to the relief of Conon, while Thrasybulus and 
Theramenes should be left with forty-six ships, to succour those who 
had been wrecked or wounded in the recent contest. But a storm 
arose, which compelled the whole armament to seek shelter among 
the islands ; and thus the citizens, who had been cast on the seas, 
were left to perish. During the delay thus occasioned, news reached 
Etonicus of the defeat of his comrades, upon which he instantly decided 
on escaping. He directed the soldiers who brought the tidings to 
sail back, and, in the morning, to return, wearing chaplets as though 
they brought news of victory. This being done, he assembled his 
troops, offered sacrifice, and while he deluded his foes with the belief 



ACCUSATION OF THE VICTORIOUS GENERALS. 353 



that be was celebrating a conquest over their friends, he ordered pre- B. C. 406. 
parations for his departure. When all was ready, he set sail with a 
favourable wind, reached Chios, and led his infantry to Methymne. 
Thus Conon found himself unexpectedly relieved, and was soon after 
joined by his victorious countrymen. 

Two of the generals only who had commanded in the battle of Accusation 
Arginusee, Aristogenes and Ptolomachus, remained with Conon, who victorious 
took his station at Samos, while the remaining six, Aristocrates, gj^jj 8 at 
Diomedon, Erasinides, Lysias, Pericles, and Thrasyllus, returned to B> c> \qq 
Athens. There they met with a reception very different indeed from 
that which their success had led them to anticipate. A previous 
decree had deprived them of their offices. They were accused by 
Theramenes before the council, of having neglected to take measures 
for the safety of the crews, wrecked during the late battle ; and were 
thrown into prison. They were not allowed the privilege of making 
a full defence, but only permitted briefly to address the people. 
Moved, or rather convinced by their statements, the majority voted for 
acquitting the generals ; but the party against them proposed to adjourn 
the assembly, on the pretence that it was growing too dark to distin- 
guish the hands held up on either side, and then, with the inconsistency 
of passion, made a proposition of their own, that the council should 
consider and decide on the manner in which the trial should be con- 
ducted. This proposal, which really gave to the council a power of 
dispensing with all the constitutional forms, was hastily carried without 
a division. 

The members of the council, thus invested almost with the power 
of determining the fate of the accused, were instigated by Callixenus, Proposition 
one of their bitterest foes, to determine that the people should ballot callixenus. 
by wards for their destiny. In the mean time, a number of persons, 
habited in mourning, were directed to traverse the city as the relatives 
of those who were wrecked at Arginusse, imploring vengeance. But 
the friends of the generals, and especially Euryptolemus, earnestly 
protested against the mode of trial proposed, as illegal. Overborne 
by clamour, they, however, thought it prudent to give up this point 
to their foes, and entreated the people to allow each individual a 
separate trial, and a day to prepare for his defence. This modest 
request was denied ; the proposition of Callixenus, after some doubt 
as to the majority, was carried, and the people proceeded to the ballot. 
The judgment thus obtained was for death ; the eight commanders 
were sentenced ; and the six who were then at Athens led to execu- 
tion. No word of resentment or complaint escaped the noble sufferers. 
Yet were they terribly avenged. In their death, faction the most 
wretched had been triumphant, and all order, justice, and dignified 
virtue forsook the Athenian councils. Athens, her honour sunk, and 
liberties profaned, hastened, even amidst victory, to her ruin. 

The allies now earnestly requested of the Spartan rulers, that 
Lysander should be sent to command them. This able chief hastened 

[H. G.] 2 A 



354 



BATTLE OF AIGOSPOTAMOS. 



b. c. 406. to Ephesus, in the beginning of the winter, and exerted all his energies 
to equip a fleet which might be able to cope with that of Athens. 
At Sardis he was again received with great kindness by Cyrus, who 
furnished him with ample supplies of money for the payment of his 
troops, and manifested the warmest interest in his success. Thus 
assisted, he soon raised his fleet to an equality with that of the foe, 
but chose rather to direct his arms against the Athenian dependencies, 
than to risk a general combat. He took Cedraea, a city on the coast 
of Caria, and gave it up to be plundered by his soldiers. Thence 
passing along the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont, he attacked Lamp- 
sacus by sea and land, and became master of the city. Meanwhile 
the Athenians, struck with some remorse for the murder of their 
commanders, compelled Callixenus and his friends to fly from the city. 
They committed the charge of their fleet to six chiefs: Menander, 
Tydeus, Cephisodotus, Adeimantus, Philocles, and Conon. These, 
with the whole armament, went in pursuit of the Peloponnesian fleet, 
and rinding that it lay at Lampsacus, took their station at Aigos- 
potamos, near the opposite shore of the Hellespont, the width of which 
did not there exceed two miles. 
Battle of The Athenian commanders were anxious immediately to give battle 
tamos?° to Lysander. But that politic general, though he ranged his ships 
b. c. 405. in proper order, and drew up his land forces on the shore, did not 
think proper to engage. He soon learned that the fleet returned, after 
offering him battle in the morning, in disorder, and that the troops 
afterwards were dispersed in quest of provisions, or amusement on 
the shore. Three days he suffered them to defy him, that their 
insolence and security might increase, while he prepared for their 
destruction. At this crisis, Alcibiades, perceiving the danger of his 
countrymen, made one effort more to save them. He hastened to 
their naval camp from his Thracian residence, exposed the perils they 
were incurring, entreated the commanders to change their measures, 
and even offered to co-operate with them, at the head of a band of 
Thracians. But they scornfully rejected his admonitions and his offers, 
and forced him to leave them to their destiny. This was not far 
distant. On the fifth day, when they had retired as usual, and the 
troops were dispersed on the shores, Lysander suddenly attacked 
the fleet, when wholly unprepared, and seized every vessel almost 
FUo-htof without resistance, excepting nine galleys, with which Conon fled. 
Conon. Thus nearly the whole naval force of Athens," consisting of a hundred 
and seventy ships, fell at a single blow into the hands of the Spartans. 
Troops, amounting to three thousand, and all the generals, except 
Conon, were made prisoners. These, dreadful to relate, were all, 
with the exception of Adeimantus, put to immediate death, under 
pretence of retaliation for the fate of the crews of two vessels, from 
Andros and Corinth, whom Philocles had ordered to be cast down 
precipice. It was also urged by the advocates of this horrible mas- 
sacre, that the Athenian commanders had, with the exception o1 



FLIGHT OF CONON. 



355 



Adeimantus, agreed, on reaching the Hellespont, to cut off the right B. C. 405. 
hand of any prisoner whom they might secure. On Philocles being 
asked what he could urge in his defence, he replied, " Ask not those 
for a defence who have no judges ; use the right conquest has given 
you, and dispose of us as we would have disposed of you had we been 
the victors." Meanwhile Conon escaped to Cyprus, where he was 
hospitably received by Evagoras, the monarch of Salamis. 

The whole residue of the Athenian power was thus destroyed in Miserable 
one day. Athens had exhausted all her resources in sending out the of 
noble armament, which was now added to the trophies and the naval 
strength of her foes. Still, in its despair, the state preserved some- 
thing of a lofty attitude. As a siege by sea and land was expected, 
preparations were made to endure it. All the ports, but one, were 
blocked up, the gates barricaded, and guards mounted on the walls. 
While Ly sander was making triumphant progress, receiving the sub- 
mission of states now eager to hail the victors, Pausanias, son of the 
unfortunate Spartan of that name, entered Attica, and joined by Agis 
from Decelea, fixed his head-quarters in the gymnasium of the academy, 
near the city. The people thus blockaded, became, in a short time, 
greatly distressed for want of provisions. Scanty supplies were 
indeed sometimes procured by the intrepidity of the youth, who, with 
still unconquered spirit, broke through the mouth of the Piraeus, and 
returned with the means of appeasing the hunger of the people. At 
length an attempt was made to open a negotiation with Agis, which 
he sternly repressed by declaring that all proposals must be addressed 
to the government of Sparta. An embassy was then despatched to 
Lacedaemon, to offer the resignation of all the possessions of Athens, 
excepting the city and the harbour, and a treaty of offensive and 
defensive alliance, which implied subjection. But the envoys were 
stopped on the borders of Laconia, by a message from the Ephori, 
commanding them to return, since the terms with which they were 
charged were already known at Sparta, and if they desired peace, 
they must come with different conditions. On the return of these 
messengers, Theramenes offered to go to Lysander, and endeavour to 
negotiate with him for a treaty ; but, after an absence of three months, 
he returned without success. He was then, with nine others of his 
fellow-citizens, commissioned to go to Lacedaemon, with no instructions 
but to procure peace on the best terms he could obtain for the 
despairing Athenians. 

On the arrival of the embassy at Sparta, an assembly of the deputies Peace agreed 
of the Lacedaemonian confederacy was convened to decide the fate of on ' 
Athens. The deputies from Thebes and Corinth, with those from 
others of the states, vehemently urged the total extermination of a 
republic, which they alleged had attempted to deprive all Greece of 
its freedom. But the Spartans checked this ferocious spirit of 
revenge, and declared that they could not think of wholly destroying 
a people who had once rendered services so important to Greece in 

2 A 2 



356 



ATHENS SURRENDERS TO SPARTA. 



b. c. 405. the Persian invasion. Peace was, therefore, concluded in the follow- 
ing terms: "That all the Athenian ships of war, except twelve, 
should be surrendered; that the long walls of the city should be 
destroyed ; that all exiles should be restored to their country and 
their possessions ; that the Athenians should treat the allies of Lace- 
daemon as their friends, and its foes as their enemies ; and that the 
forces of Athens, by sea and land, should be at the complete disposal 
Surrender of of the Spartans." These hard conditions having been ratified, Agis, 
Lender. w ^ n n * s armv j to °k possession of the walls ; and Lysander, with his 
b. c. 404. feet, entered the harbour. The fortifications which connected the 
city with its ports were demolished, while military music was played, 
and exulting shouts everywhere proceeded from the conquerors. 
The nobles of the aristocratic party, who were in exile, returned to 
their homes. On their arrival, the popular constitution was over- 
thrown, the assemblies of the people prohibited, and the powers of 
government vested in thirty rulers. When this revolution was com- 
pleted, the Peloponnesian forces withdrew, and left the humbled 
Athenan Athenians to enjoy all the repose which their new governors would 
power totally allow. Thus, in its twenty-seventh year, ended the Peloponnesian war, 
subverted. a f ter totally subverting the grandeur of Athens, and destroying the 
finer spirit of Grecian freedom. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The readers of the Iliad may remember that the combats of Homeric introductory 
heroes are often interrupted by a polite delay, unknown in modern remarks - 
warfare : deeds of arms are suspended, while warriors relate family 
histories ; and thus the reader's mind, after the excitement created by 
battles described, reposes awhile on these amicable conferences, in 
which are introduced old traditions, national customs, personal adven- 
tures, and traits of individual character. 

Something after the same manner we desire to interpose, between 
the graver and more political parts of the history of the Greeks, some 
account of their social condition. The subject ascends into that early 
literature in which history finds few trustworthy materials ; it creates 
for itself a wide interest, because the manners and customs of antiquity 
are connected with our own daily life in the way either of likeness or 
of contrast. It may, therefore, communicate knowledge and amuse- 
ment to minds which care little now for the restless politics of the 
Peloponnesian war. After the historian has gathered in his rich and 
more important harvest, much may remain for the antiquarian 
student — " as the shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning grapes 
when the vintage is done :' n but he who would labour in this field 
1 Isaiah, xxiv. 13. 



358 



SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANCIENT GKEEKS. 



must be willing to wander far, and to make his acquisitions by slow 
degrees. 

Sometimes these acquisitions are communicated to the public in an 
ample and orderly collection of facts, gathered from various writers of 
antiquity. Such details would naturally be interwoven with the 
author's own observations of admiration or censure, classical criticism, 
Bruce. and comparison. This is the plan followed by Bruce, in his State of 
st. John. Society in the Age of Homer, 1 and St. John, in his Ancient Greece ; 8 
a work which Walter S. Landor calls " the most learned, the 
most comprehensive, and the most judicious, ever written about 
the manners, the institutions, and the localities of that country." 3 
Other writers have sought the help of fiction : the circumstances, 
whether opinions or customs, political and domestic, are grouped 
around imaginary personages. Thus tessellated fragments of ancient 
writers are made to form, or to sanction, Greek history, biography, or 
novel ; and what the subject loses in exact truthfulness, it is supposed 
to gain in vivacity and interest. 
Bartheiemy. In the last century, 4 the Abbe Barthelemy published a voluminous 
work, called Les Voyages du Jeune Anacharsis ; the fictitious travels 
of a Scythian in Greece : 5 the author was a laborious student, and 
examined widely ; but critical scholarship was at that time far below 
its present elevation, and he had little skill in weighing the value of 
authorities. 

Athenian In 1741, four octavo volumes were privately printed, purporting to 
Letters. ^ e a recen tl v -di SC0V ered correspondence between Oleander, a Persian 
spy residing at Athens, and the ministers of the great king : his arrival 
is supposed to take place in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, 
and these " Athenian Letters," as they were called, conclude about the 
time of the death of Artaxerxes. They were the joint productions of 
Lord Hardwicke, Mr. Yorke, and others. In 1798, the work was 
published in quarto, and again in 1810. It was creditable to its 
authors ; but it has been superseded by the increased knowledge and 
scholarship of later times. 
Landor. Landor's Pericles and Aspasia 6 consists chiefly of letters, which pass 

between that celebrated beauty and a certain Cleone 7 resident at 
Miletus: they are on matters domestic, political, and literary. 
Aspasia becomes acquainted with Pericles 8 — converses with Anaxa- 
goras 9 — dines with Aristophanes 10 — writes to Herodotus, to express 
her admiration of his works 11 — reports a speech of Pericles on the 
defection of Eubcea and Megara 12 — learns from Cleone the affairs of 

1 Duod. Belfast, 1827. 8 Three vols, octavo, London, 1849. 

3 Page 425, Letter 174, note. 

4 The work began in 1757, and was published in 1788. 

5 About the year 362 B. c. Anacharsis arrives at Athens, and returns to Scythia 
337 B. c. 

6 Published with the rest of his works in 1846. 

7 Letters 1 and 2. 8 Letter 10. 9 Letter 79. 
10 Letter 86. 11 Letter 88 12 Letter 95. 



SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 



359 



Samos, and hears Thucydides read parts of his history. 1 There are 
some tender and some sad passages, and a few ludicrous sketches of 
domestic life, e. g., the supper given to Polus the actor f but as 
the literary and critical element of these letters predominate over the 
social, they lie in great measure beyond our present subject. 

In the works already mentioned, Barthelemy gives us fictitious Bekker. 
biography and travels. The Athenian Letters are chiefly political, and 
Bekker's Charicles 3 is a Greek novel, not a romance : a novel, in that 
the characters introduced to give a portrait of Greek life are imaginary ; 
not a romance, in that to each of the chapters or scenes an excursus, 
or essay, is annexed, giving authorities for the manner in which the 
several parts of the story are handled. 

The general incidents, the cast of the characters, and the particular 
details, are justified by a wide and accurate knowledge of ancient 
literature ; and references are given to many modern authors, especially 
Germans. The work is arranged in twelve scenes, with the following 
titles : The Friends of Youth. Corinth. The Paternal Abode. 4 The 
Trapezitae. The Habits of Youth. The Banquet. The Trito. The 
Invalid. The Will. The Dionysia. The Ring. The Wedding Day. 5 

We proceed to offer to our readers some observations on the social 
condition of the ancient Greeks : not borrowing from the works above 
mentioned, except where acknowledgment is duly made ; nor at- 
tempting to vie with them in copiousness or learning ; but bringing 
within a small compass such details of private life as may stimulate 
inquiry into a department of knowledge which, in England at least, 
has been less cultivated than it deserves. 



SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS OF THE HOMERIC AGE, 

IN ITS 

Arts. 

Religion - - - Objects ; Sanctions ; Ceremonies. 
Domestic Relations. 

POST-HOMERIC AGE. 

! I Male. Under the Grammarian, Philosopher, and Sophist. 
Female. Marriage Ceremonies ; Domestic Economy ; 
Mental Cultivation ; Station in Society. 
Slavery ; Administration of Justice ; Convivial Habits. 
Sparta Slavery; Education. 



1 Letter 143. 2 Letter 78. 

8 Translated from the German by the Rev. Frederick Metcalf, 1 vol. 8vo. 1845. 

4 This chapter has an excursus on the markets and commerce ; the one called 
Trito has an excursus on the slaves. 

* To the works above mentioned should be added, Pericles, a Tale of Athens ; and 
Amymone, a Romance of the days of Pericles. They are criticised in the Edin- 
burgh Review, published in October, 1850. 



SECTION I. 



THE SOCIAL AND MILITARY CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 

Homer Begin we then with Homer : in his works we have the earliest extant 
RhtpSodists. Greek, and a glimpse, if not a view, of society in its earliest form ; or, 
at least, in a form earlier than any, except what the Old Testament 
describes. Homeric and patriarchal life have, as might be expected, 
many points of likeness. He who would see how characters and 
incidents assimilate, and how the Greek hexameter and Hebrew prose 
converge towards the same subject, will find an index of direction in 
Coleridge on the classic poets. 1 But such examples lose their beauty 
Resemblance when isolated : to be properly felt, they should be read as parts of 
niadlnVSie their own continuous stories : then " the Old Testament and the Iliad 
old reflect light mutually each on the other ; and in respect of the poetry 

es am n . ^ e manners a ^ least, if not of the morals ... he who has the 
longest studied, and the most deeply imbibed, the spirit of the 
Hebrew Scriptures, will the best understand, and the most lastingly 
appreciate, " the tale of Troy divine." 2 
individuality As to Homer, etymologists have tormented his name : 3 ancient 
of Homer. c iti es contended for the honour of his birth ; some modern critics have 
been impartial to all the claimants, by denying that he was born any- 
where; i. e., making the disputed name stand rather for a bundle of 
poems of various dates and authors than for a real living individual 
man. But taste and feeling, even if they are unable to answer the 
arguments of scholastic criticism, are wont to hold their own opinions : 

1 Page 179. ' 2 Coleridge, p. 180 (1 vol. 12mo, 1834). 

3 E. g. oftou aga' oftnguv' a fin oguv. 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



361 



'they have decided, and will maintain, 1 that the Iliad is not a congeries 
of songs originally unconnected, except by their general subject, and 
that its author was the Great Unknown of antiquity. Whether he 
was the author of the Odyssey is also another vexata qucestio. 2 But 
in whatever way we decide these questions, the works that pass under 
his name (notwithstanding Plato's disapprobation), have entered into 
that system of education which has trained successively the Athenian, 
the Boman, and the English mind. Even the unliterary Spartan 
received them with pleasure from the hands of Lycurgus ; in fact, this 
treasure which he brought to his fellow-citizens from Ionia was more 
valuable than the constitution he framed for them at home. One line 
of it concentrated a Spartan's patriotism — 

The best of omens is our country's cause. 

A small part of the fifteenth book, from verse 486 to 513, contains 
the substance of those martial strains of Tyrtaaus which, either as 
lessons in elegiac verse {yirodr}Kai eXeyiiag, Suidas) or marching 
songs (e/x/Sarr/jOta), cheered the frugal meal of the Spartan's bivouac, 
or animated his courage at the moment of assault. 

The Athenian mind was at all times capable of enjoying the tender 
and the picturesque, as well as the warlike parts of the Iliad — the 
traits of character, as well as incidents of fiction, which appear in the 
Odyssey: nor could they fail, by reason of their national and com- 
mercial relations, to import these poems, or fragments of them, from 
Ionia. Travelling minstrels, called Homeridse and Khapsodists, made Text of the 
them known still more widely ; and at length Solon and Peisistratus o^gy* 1 
rendered this service to Athens and to literature : they collected and fixed by 
compared the extant versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, as far as peSratL 
this could be done from oral recitation, and perhaps interpolated 
occasionally a few lines, to gratify national vanity, by honourable 
mention of Theseus. 3 Thus they fixed a text, and then engraved 
it : this text was incorporated with the public amusements of the 
Panathensea, and the rhapsodists were compelled to recite it in suc- 
cession ; not according to their own taste or fancy, but in that order 
which appeared to accord best with the poet's original plan. 4 Poems 

1 One of the latest and ablest books on this subject is a " Critical History of the 
Language and Literature of Ancient Greece," by William Mure, of Caldwell. Those 
who have not access to the book itself may see a critical account of it in the Edin- 
burgh Keview, No. 188. 

2 Coleridge decides against this, p. 270. Muhler speaks thus doubtfully : " That 
the Odyssey was written after the Iliad, and that many differences are apparent, is 
quite clear ; but it is difficult and hazardous to raise on this foundation any definite 
conclusions as to the person and age of the poet. Perhaps Homer, having sang the 
Iliad in the vigour of his youthful years, in his old age communicated to some 
devoted disciple the plan of the Odyssey, which had long been working in his mind, 
and left it to him for completion." — Hist, of Lit. of Greece, c. v. s. 13. 

3 Od. xi. 630. 

4 See Papers on Homer and the Homeridae, Blackwood's Magazine, No. 312 ; 
Muhler, Lit. Ancient Greece, c. v. s. 14 ; Coleridge, p. 52 et seq. 



362 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



thus stamped with the mark of public praise must thenceforward, if 
not before, have entered into private education. iElian says, Alcibi- 
ades beat a schoolmaster who had no part of Homer as his stock in 
trade. At a much later time, Quinctilian lays on the Iliad and Odys- 
sey the foundation of his orator's persuasive powers ; and many, if not 
most, of those who, among ourselves, have risen to eminence at the 
bar or in the senate, have drawn from the same source their first 
acquaintance with eloquent composition. 

Literary criticism, however, is not within our present purpose; 
rather we would give our readers a theory on Homer's social condition, 
having, as we hope, sufficiently pleaded for his existence. Professor 
Keble 1 shall be mainly, though not exclusively, our guide : the sagacity 
of one poet has framed, from the internal evidence of the works of 
another, a view of his position among his fellow-men, his patriotic 
predilections, manner of life, feelings, and political opinions. Such a 
theory as that presented by Keble should be estimated by a careful 
collation of the passages on which it rests ; and should it be found 
less complete, it is at least less improbable than the opinion of those 
who identify Homer with his own Odysseus. 

Homer lived at a time when the manners and feelings, the actors 
and achievements, of the Heroic age were fresh in the recollections of 
mankind; the abiding subjects of his own admiration and regret: these 
were kept alive by traditionary song; 2 they were cherished by the 

His sympa- martial spirit of the times, and the family pride of the illustrious. 

tines Greek, materials of fiction, containing historic truth without being 

but not too 11111 TT 

partial. restricted to it, were moulded by the imagination of Homer into the 
Iliad and Odyssey. It was his delight to dwell on the past ; it was 
his hope to convey an impression of it to the future ; the time present 
being in a state of transition, not improvement. 3 His heart and sym- 
pathies were with the Greeks, yet right nobly has he assigned the 
Trojans their share of prowess and of praise : this is a trait both of the 
heroic age and the individual poet. The hero of heroes, le brave des 
braves, is unquestionably A chilles : 4 there is a force and grandeur, a 
sublimity in the conception of this character, and a splendour in the 
poetry embodying it — there are traits of courtesy and generous feeling, 
intermingling with sternness and ferocity, like streaks of light crossing 
a dark cloud — which hurry us into admiration. But better feelings 
rest with greater pleasure on the superior civilization and character 
(^0og), of Hector, Priam, Sarpedon, and Glaucus, as compared with 
the Grecian chieftains : these were gentlemen of their day as well as 
heroes. Andromache delights us by her domestic virtues; on the 
other hand, Helen wins us in spite of her domestic delinquencies : we 

1 Prselectio Sexta, et seq. 

8 On the Ante-Homeric Poetry, see Lit. of Greece, c. iii. iv. 

3 See Hesiod, 'Egy xat 'H^, 172. 

4 Compare II. xvi. 70, and II. xviii. 198 et seq., with II. xvi. 233 ; ix. 197 ; 
xxiv. 582. 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



363 



forget her guilt in her repentance and affectionate gratitude. The 
unity of this character alone is a strong argument against a plurality of 
authors of the Iliad. 1 

Homer knew by practical experience what he describes so well ; 
the minute details of battle and the tented field — fighting or feasting, 
or at rest— on bivouac with Diomed 2 — wounded or triumphant — 
arming for battle or retreating — feeding his horses or driving them — 
the Homeric chieftain and soldier is what Homer knew him to be by 
actual service ; though, of course, characters and circumstances, as the 
intended representatives of the heroic times, are ennobled and glorified 
by poetical imagination. 3 

Before the poet's eyes lay the book of Asiatic 4 nature, and he read 
it largely and accurately : when he would illustrate by comparison 
the Trojan troops pouring from their ships and tents, the swans of 
Cayster and the Asian meadows rose spontaneously to his mind. His 
knowledge of natural history is Asiatic : similes drawn from the lion 5 
and the panther have a truth and colouring which would not have 
occurred to a Greek, or, at least, they would probably have been 
deficient in such characteristic minutias as observation and experience 
alone bestow. Homer's thoughts are those of one accustomed to live 
much under the open canopy of heaven ; observation painting pictures 
on the organ of memory, to be reproduced for the delight of all gene- 
rations, perhaps when the visual ray had been quenched. Further, it 
is likely that Homer, when not engaged in military service, was em- 
ployed in the cultivation of the earth : his measures of distance are 
rustic ; 6 his divisions of the day are often marked by the cessation of 
rustic labours; 7 the woodcutter's meal, or the unyoking of oxen. 
Who that had not often handled a woolly 8 sheep would have thought 
of telling us that Hector poised a stone in act to throw as easily as a 
shepherd carries a ram's fleece ? Shepherds in those days must often 
have done battle with the lion to save the flock, and the verses which 
describe the chase or attack — the flight or death — of wild beasts, are 
probably from the same hand which sometimes dealt the blow. 

Homer was not rich, but it is manifest from his poetry that he Homer's 
admired, not only the uses, but the show of wealth : 9 he was of the com- ^Slon. 
monalty, not of the nobles. In the heroic age only these two classes 
appear. The one class met to advise and inform the king, and they com- 
municated their determinations to the other class assembled as listeners ; 
the former were kings (/WiXag), rulers (apxpvrig), elders (yepovreg), 
and the latter were the people (6 Xaog). 10 Perhaps Homer worked 

1 Compare II. iii. 171, et seq., with II. xxiv. 762, et seq. 2 II. x. 150. 

8 Prael. ix. * II. ii. 461 ; v. 864 ; Prsel. x. * II. xvii. 132 ; xxi. 571. 

6 II. xxiii. 845. * 1I. xi. 67 and 84 ; Od. xiii. 31 ; xii. 421 and 439. 

8 Prsel. x.; II. xii. 451. 

8 II. xxi. 75 ; xi. 241 ; xvi. 221 ; xii. 310 ; Prsel. x. and xiv. 

10 Heyne's note on II. ix. 397, and Grote, vol. ii. c. xx. eJj-re?, first mentioned 
in the Odyssey, lib. iv. v. 644, were those who worked for hire ; 'hou'koi were slaves 
purchased ; obpuls were slaves captured in war. 



364 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



His political for hire ; he evidently understood the business, and entered into the 
feelings of that class •} still, when Greece was in a transition state from 
monarchies established on limited privileges to democracy more or less 
developed, Homer was on the conservative side. 2 This appears most 
strongly in the Odyssey, where the party destructive of established 
law, custom, and government, is' represented by the suitors, and the 
supporters of monarchical principles by Laertes, Telemachus, and 
Eumseus. 

Whether this theory, worked out with much ingenuity and apparent 
confidence by Professor Keble, finds more or less acceptance, the 
student of classical poetry will be much indebted to his course of 
lectures for many new trains of thought, and the development of many 
new beauties ; he will also find there a model of modern Latinity : the 
style is perspicuous, without being feeble ; it is a good copy of the 
ancient masters, not a servile imitation. 
Homer Probably we shall not err very widely in saying that Homer flou- 

probabif rished not earlier than 1005 y ears before Christ, not later than 776. 3 
B.C. 1005. Tradition as old as Simonides assigned Chios as his birthplace or 
habitual residence : the Hymn to Apollo says the same thing ; and the 
beauty of the lines 4 in which the communication is made has won 
some critics to believe that they are Homer's own composition ; but, 
however this may have been, Homer was like his own Odysseus 5 in that 
" he had wandered far, had seen the cities, and studied the character 
of many men." He could handle, not only a woolly sheep and a 
javelin, but a harp too ; and perhaps the Lay of the First minstrel was 
like the lay of the Last, in that it procured him a hospitable and 
honourable reception at the houses of the great — 
In varying cadence' soft or strong, 
He swept the sounding chords along, 
Each blank in faithless memory void 
The poet's glowing thoughts supplied. Scott. 

He arose in a rude age, which he instructed and charmed by the 
fiction of incident : he arose in an age of religious ignorance, which 
felt its need of instruction, and therefore readily accepted that structure 
of mythology 6 which he wrought out of the materials of tradition, 
consolidated and embellished by his own poetical imagination: but 
neither the fiction of incident, nor the inventions of superstition, 
possess a durable and universal interest. Homer added to these 
another excellence, which his contemporaries were scarcely able to 
appreciate — the fiction of character ; — and this rendered him the 
ornament and the oracle of ages of progressive refinement. Had he 

1 Prael. xiv. 2 Ibid. xiii. 

3 Fast. Hellen. Introd. The Arundel Marble places him 907 B. c. Professor 
Keble thinks he wrote about the time of the return of the Heracleidae, i.e. about 
eighty years after the fall of Troy. Mr. Grote places the Iliad and Odyssey 
between 850 B. c. and 776 B. c. 

4 165 to 173. 8 Od. i. 1 ; Landor's Peric. and Asp. Letters 83 and 84. 
e Herod, ii. 53. 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



365 



not painted faithfully the exploits of a rude age, his poetry would not 
have been preserved so long by the medium of oral tradition ; but his 
universal and lasting charm arises from his power of delineating human 
nature, 1 the constitution of which remains essentially the same, however 
it may be modified by climate, polity, or religion. 

The Iliad and the Odyssey are, indeed, wonderful examples ofniadand 
human genius ; wonderful, both in the extent of their range, and the 0dyssey ' 
minuteness of their details. 2 In them we may explore the structure 
of society, the state of the arts, the sacred ordinances, and the forms 
of government, which existed perhaps a thousand years before the 
Christian era ; and we have every reason to trust the fidelity of our 
guide. True it is, that no contemporary writings remain, by which 
his accuracy may be tried ; but the correctness of his geographical Geography, 
accounts, especially of Greece, Crete, and Ithaca, the precise propriety 
of his epithets and descriptions, have been satisfactorily attested by the 
unexceptionable authority of geographers and travellers from Strabo, 3 
to the author of Eothen. 4 "Methley reminded me of a passage in 
the Iliad, in which Poseidon is represented as looking at the scene 
of action before Ilion, from above the island of Samothrace. Now 
Samothrace, according to the map, appeared to be not only out of all 
seeing distance from the Troad, but to be entirely shut out from it by 
the intervening Imbros, a larger island. I think the testing of the 
poet's words by map and compass may have shaken a little of my faith 
in the completeness of his knowledge. Well, now I had come — here 
at my side was Imbros all right — but aloft in a far-away heaven was 
Samothrace, the watch-tower of Poseidon — now I believed — now I 
knew, that Homer had passed along here." If, then, he was exact 
where fictitious accounts might have been easily imposed on the 
credulity of an untravelled audience, we need not suspect his delineation 
of life and manners, where every hearer would be a judge of the force 
and fidelity of the representation. 

The characters of Homer's poems were formed by the records of 
tradition. Accordingly, many minute circumstances are introduced of 
no intrinsic interest, and of no importance in the poem, merely because 
they were traditional : 5 they were not worth inventing, and the fact of 
their being preserved at all, is a sign that the whole work has its 
foundation in history, though its embellishment is fictitious. The 
heroic ages declare by their very name that " there were giants in those 
days," and Homeric allusions extend upwards beyond the war of Troy 
to the Calydonian boar-hunt, the Argonautic expedition, and the war 

1 II. iii. 153 ; vi. 380 et seq. ; xvi. 7 ; xxiv. 253 and 486 ; Od. vi. 66 ; ix. 447 ; 
viii. 457. 

2 II. iv. 122 ; xvi. 156 ; xviii. 490 et seq. ; xxi. 257 ; Od. ix. 371 et seq. ; xiv. 
5 and 418. Yet in Philemon's time no one called Homer prolix (jtaxgos). 
Fragm. 22. 

3 E. (). The epithet rubious, well-walled, is applied only twice, to Tyrins and 
Gortyna ; the walls of the former remain to this day. 

4 P. 47. 5 B. g. II. xi. yvofa »a) yvwtov, 102, 111, and 427. 



366 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



War, 
generally 
cruel, but 



of the Epigoni. 1 "The tale of Troy divine" gives us, on a grand 
scale, both the vices and the virtues of an age of moral darkness and 
frequent warfare : — the very scenes of battle itself, its plunder, and its 
bloodshed, have their lights and shades. 2 Heroes stay their strife to 
relate, with honourable pride, the deeds of a long line of ancestry ; 
and if such details by chance bring to light any tie of ancient hos- 
pitality, between the remote kindred of the contending parties, the 
claim is recognised as one which should terminate hostilities, and 
each seeks a more appropriate foe, to preserve that claim inviolate. 8 
Still, the general character of warfare was ferocious 4 in the extreme : 
the plundered city is burnt, and the defenceless prisoner murdered 
without remorse; living enemies are addressed in the language of 
insult ; indecent outrages are perpetrated on the dead ; while those 
who escape the conqueror's sword, are reserved for the hardships of 
servitude, or the degradation of concubinage. 5 
mitigated by The descriptions, however, of these deeds are relieved by circum- 
hospitliity stances to which modern warfare offers no counterpart : such are the 
scenes when whole armies determine to suspend their fate on the issue 
of a single combat — the solemnities of sacrifice by which this agree- 
ment is ratified 6 — the dialogue 
which precedes the fight 7 ' — the 
separation of the combatants by 
the intervention of heralds — 
their mutual interchange of 
gifts 8 — and the reward be- 
stowed on each champion, a 
more ample goblet at the gene- 
ral feast, or a larger share of 
the sacrificial victim. 9 Such 
also are the rites of divination, 
the burning of the dead, and 
the games celebrated around 
their graves ; such, also, are the 
fanciful personages of mytho- 
logy who mingle in the fight, 
with enough of power to ex- 
cite hope and fear, and yet 
enough of weakness and imper- 
fection to be the objects of human sympathy. These descriptions, 
connected with the names and the achievements of ancient families, 
must have charmed an audience, delighting, as the Orientals have 
always done, in vivid narration of incident ; while the traits of per- 
i See Heyne's note on II. ix. 529. 2 II. vi. 416 ; vii. 81. 

3 The same custom is said to exist among the tribes of the Bedouin Arabs. 

4 II. ii. 354 ; vi. 55 ; xxiv. 212 ; xxii. 41 and 335 ; xviii. 336. 
4 II. ix. 660. 6 II. iii. 276 et seq. 
7 11. iii. 68 and 268 ; vii. 274. 8 II. vii. 303 ; x. 216. 
9 Comp. 1 Sam. ix. 23; II. vii. 321 ; Od. v. 371. 




CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



367 



sonal character they draw out, the curious customs they display, and 
the fragments of traditionary history they preserve, have secured the 
interest of succeeding ages. 

It is remarkable that Homer's heroes never fight on horseback : not ^ a H 0t m °[ ic 
that the practice of riding was unknown in his own time, for he a ge. 
alludes to a refinement 1 in the art, which proves the perfection it had 
acquired. Chariots supplied the place of cavalry; but, unlike the 
iron carriages of a much earlier period, which defended the valleys of 
Canaan, 2 or the scythe-armed chariots 3 of a later date, which delayed 
the fall of Antiochus, these were slight cars, raised on two low wheels, 
and open behind; the body being no higher than the backs of the 
horses, and the sides giving no protection above the knee to the driver 
and the warrior who occupied them. When the line of battle was 
drawn up with most of caution and regularity, they occupied the van : 
the veteran infantry were ranged behind, and between these two ranks 

were those whose courage or whose patriotism might be suspected. 

Sometimes these chariots mingled in the thickest affray ; 4 or they Medicine. 

hovered on its skirts to convey the 

chieftain where his example and his 

encouragement might be most 
.wanted ; or they bore him to his 

tent, where the barbed arrow 5 

might be cut from his wounded 

limb, the blood stanched by bitter 

roots, or the pain assuaged by 

medicinal herbs ; such were the 

simple remedies of an age, when 

the profession of the surgeon and 

physician was the same ; when the 

imagination of the patient was 

sometimes pacified, and thus the chance of recovery increased, by the 

charm of metrical incantation f while many diseases were dismissed 

as incurable, under the idea that they were visitations from heaven. 

The poet's own knowledge of the structure of the human body seems 

to have been considerable : enlightened critics have agreed, that when 

he describes the fatal wounds of his warriors, they are very scien- 
tifically killed. 

In an early stage of civilization, a high value will naturally be Metallurgy, 
attached to the occupations of the mechanic and the artificer. Ac- 
cordingly, the armourer 7 is ranked with the diviner, the physician and 
the bard, as one whose presence was not only welcome, but solicited. 8 The 
Such skill supplies the wants of society, and is dignified by the title of r ~~" 

1 II. xv. 634 and 679 ; iv. 259 ; xii. 310; iv. 343. 
8 Judges, i. 19. 3 Liv. xxxvii. 41. 

4 II. xvi. 367 ; iv. 297 ; and Heyne's notes on II. xii. 75. 

5 Poisoned arrows are named, Od. i. 262, but not in the Iliad. 

6 Od. xix. 457, conf. Soph. Trachin. 1003. 
8 Od. xvii. 382. 




■ armourer. 



» Od. xvii. 384. 



368 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



wisdom. 1 The art of working metals is necessary for the armour of 
personal defence; that of embroidery is connected with personal 
ornament; the appointments of the prince or the chieftain combine 
the two, and thus become illustrations to remoter periods of the 
peaceful artist's proficiency. In Homer's time 2 iron was apparently 
scarce ; at least, a mass of this metal is offered as a prize 3 at the 
funeral games of Patroclus ; and mentioned in a manner which seems 
Ornamental to imply its rarity as well as its usefulness. Armour was chiefly 
metallurgy, f^j^^ f rom a metallic substance containing copper and tin. The 
breadth of the breastplate and the ample shield afforded most scope 
to the armourer's ability and taste : these were constructed with plates 
of gold, tin, brass, and silver. As a decoration of the former, we find, 
. when Agamemnon 4 arms for battle, he braces on a breastplate on 
which six serpents are wrought, whose burnished crests were reared 
towards his throat, and which reflected, or perhaps were stained to 
imitate, the colours of the rainbow, as they glanced in the sun : on the 
latter, were studs of tin, amidst which were representations of warlike 
goddesses, personifications of fear and flight, with the Gorgon's terrific 
head, while the handle was worked in silver like the spires of a three- 
headed snake. The sword has a silver scabbard, suspended by thongs 
of gold. But the most magnificent example of the art of metallurgy was 
the famous shield of Achilles : 5 in the centre were the planets and the 
sun, the waves of ocean rolling round the extremities ; then followed, 
in a beautiful series, scenes of pastoral life, tillage, the harvest and the 
vintage; there, too, was the siege, the ambuscade, and the battle; 
judicial inquiry, and political deliberation ; the musical festivities of a 
marriage, and the evolutions of a national dance. The grouping of these 
scenes respectively, their number, variety, and contrast, attest the skill 
of the artist, or of the poet, or of both. How the difference of colour 
was produced is uncertain ; it might have been by paint, since ivory 6 
was stained to adorn the bits of horses ; or, perhaps, by the effect of 
fire, for the art of fusing metals was known. Indeed, casting, gilding, 
and carving, both in wood and metal, were practised at a much earlier 
time by those who are described in Exodus 7 as "devising cunning 
works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of 
stones to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of 
workmanship." That temple, winch the piety of Solomon dedicated, 
and which his opulence enriched, owed the beauty and the delicacy of 
its sculptured decorations to the skill of a Tyrian artificer. 8 The 
descriptions of it recorded in the national archives of Judaea, 9 may vin- 
dicate Homer from unduly exaggerating either the abundance of the 
precious metals, or the progress of the ornamental arts. 

Nor was the warrior altogether unindebted to the labours of the 

1 Exod. xxxvi. 1. 2 II. xxiii. 831. 3 II. xxlii. 826. 

i II. xi. 28. s II. xviii. 6 II. iv. 141. 

7 Ch. xxxi. 5. 8 2 Chron. ii. 14. 

9 2 Chron. ix. 19; Od. vii. 100. 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



369 



needle and the loom; 1 wild animals were embroidered on his belt ; Embroider- 
the trophies of his dexterity in the chase, and the decoration of his m8 ' 
person in the fight. More ample robes were either received as the 
pledge of courteous hospitality, or won as the prize of valour. Such 
occupations suited the secluded life and unintellectual habits of oriental 
females : they are mentioned early, with an emphasis of description 
which seems to mark their costliness and value. " Have they not 
sped ? Have they not divided the prey ? — to Sisera a prey of divers 
colours ; a prey of divers colours of needlework on both sides ; meet 
for the necks of them that take the spoil." 2 Such garments were 
stored in the treasury of Priam. Sidonian 3 artists were most expert 
in their fabrication ; but the high-born ladies of the court were appa- 
rently no mean proficients. Helen 4 weaves a representation of a battle 
between the Greeks and the Trojans : Andromache 5 copies flowers in 
a veil : the web of Penelope 6 is proverbially known — that funeral 
offering for Laertes from the hand of filial affection ; while another, 
which she presents to an unknown guest, is thus beautifully described 
by Pope : — 

In ample mode, 

A robe of military purple rlow'd 

O'er all his frame : illustrious on his breast. 

The double-clasping gold the king confest. 

In the rich woof a hound, mosaic drawn, 

Bore on full stretch, and seiz'd a dappled fawn ; 

Deep in the neck his fangs indent their hold ; 

They pant and struggle in the moving gold : 

Pine as a filmy web 7 beneath it shone 

A vest, that dazzled like a cloudless sun : 

The female train, who round him throng'd to gaze, 

In silent wonder sigh'd unwilling praise. 

Od. xix. 261. 

It was natural that the goldsmith and the jeweller should be put in Jewellery, 
requisition, when the materials of their trade were abundant. We 
trace them in female dress, 8 and in the implements of the toilet ; in 
both there is, together with the magnificence of real wealth, much of Dress, 
the simplicity of real taste : there were necklaces of gold and of 
amber ; 9 there were earrings, whose pendent drops imitated either the 
form or the brilliancy of the human eye : 10 the hair was curled or 
braided, and covered with a veil : the robe was fastened over the 
bosom with golden clasps : a fringe surrounded the waist, and com- 
pleted the full-dress costume 11 of a lady of the Homeric age. The Domestic 
appointments of her palace were as costly 12 as the decorations of her ornaments - 

1 Od. xi. 608 ; II. iii. 371. 2 Judges, v. 30. 

3 II. vi. 289. Conf. Prov. xxxi. 13 ; II. xxiv. 228. 

4 II. iii. 125. s II. xxii. 440. 

6 Od. ii. 99 ; see also Od. vii. 235. 

7 Literally like the coat of an onion in softness, z^opvoto Xonh. Od. xix. 233. 

8 Od. xviii. 292. 9 Od. xv. 459. 
10 II. xiv. 183. 11 II- xiv. 181. 
12 II. iii. 382 and 391. 

[H. G.] 2 B 



370 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



person ; its walls glittered with silver, tin, ivory, brass, and amber : l 
her tripod has four handles, graced by eight golden doves : 2 her lyre 3 
has a silver frame, her basket 4 is silver, and her distaff gold : the ewers 
and the basins which are served at the banquet, and even the bath, 
which alleviates fatigue, are of the like precious materials, 5 Such 
descriptions are splendid, but not improbable : for the mines of Ophir 
on the eastern coast of Africa, and those of Tarshish, perhaps in the 
Abundant south of Spain, had long since opened their prodigious treasures : 6 
sofcf 17 ° f knowledge of navigation enabled the Phoenicians to seek and to circu- 
late them ; and since it does not appear that gold and silver were used 
as the medium of commercial transactions, there was no inducement to 
convert plate into money. 7 
Social state. In the Homeric age, however, with much of splendour in the 
domestic appointments of its kings and nobles, there was, in the con- 
stitution of its society, much of the rudeness and ferocity 8 of a half- 

1 Od. vii. 83. 2 II. xi. 632. a II. ix. 187. 

4 Od. iv. 131. Some ancient jewellery found in Ithaca, in a tomb amidst ruins 
which tradition designates as the residence of Odysseus, are as exquisite in their 
workmanship as any of those ornaments which Homer describes. Their date is 
unknown. See Hughes' Greece, vol. i. 160. 

5 The description of Nestor's cup is thus translated by Pope : — 

Next her white hand an antique goblet brings, 
A goblet sacred to the Pylean kings 
From eldest times : embossed with studs of gold, 
Two feet support it, and four handles hold, 
On each bright handle, bending o'er the brink, 
In sculptured gold, two turtles seem to drink. 

II. xi. 777. 

5 Homer names Alybe as famous for its silver mines : okv kgyvoov sari ylvtiTm 
H. ii. 857. 

7 Oxen are sometimes named as the standard of valuation ; by this criterion the 
armour of Glaucus is compared to that of Diomed, in the sixth book of the Iliad, 
236 : and it appears that gold was more valuable than the metal commonly used 
in making armour, in the proportion of 100 to 9. Wine that arrived from Lemnos 
was distributed to the troops before Troy, in exchange for brass, iron, skins, and 
slaves. (II. vii. 472.) 

The pagan temples, in the time of Herodotus, abounded in the offerings of wealthy 
superstition. Croesus (Herod, i. 50 and 51) sent to Delphi a lion of pure gold, 
which weighed ten talents, and a statue of a female near five feet in height ; besides 
a quantity of ingots, bowls, casks, and other utensils equally costly. The riches 
of Babylon (Herod, i. 183) also were immense: there was a vast figure of Zeus, 
whose altar, table, and throne were of gold; and Cyrus found in the treasury 
5400 vessels of gold and silver, the plunder of the temple of Jerusalem (Ezra, i. 11). 
He is said to have had also a vine wrought in gold, from which hung clusters of 
jewels : and in the time of Darius there was a similar work of art, and a palm tree 
of the same materials (Herod, vii. 27). The store-house of Odysseus (Od. ii. 337) 
contained piles of gold and silver, raiment in chests, fragrant oil, and casks of wine. 

Various comparisons have been made of the precious metals now consumed in 
the arts, with the quantity of gold and silver coin. One estimate is, coin 270 mil- 
lions sterling, arts 4,250,000.— .Fa 7 . Rev. April, 1832. 

8 Toy 2' aero p\v (hvJLs <rt fca) ovd-.to. »r,Xit -^ocXku 
TcifAVOv' fjt.nbia. <r i%i£vtrav, xvtriv una. laeaixQxi. 

Od. xxii. 475. 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



371 



civilized state. 1 Its chivalry at the best and brightest was not chaste ; 
no point of honour forbade flight in battle. Odysseus prides himself 
on the wide reputation he had obtained by his versatile cunning 
(Od. ix. 19). 

Ei^' 'O^utrtrzv; Aaz^nuhyis o; Tatri 2oXouriv 
' AvUgwTToitri {tzka> km) ftzu xXzo$ ovgavov \xu. 

Homicide might be either avenged, or compromised by payment, at 
the will of the relations of the deceased. 

Whether alphabetical characters are implied in the Iliad is a dis- Piracy, 
puted question. The profession 2 of the freebooter was not discre- 
ditable ; he who asked his guest if he was a pirate, violated no 
courtesy by the question : no affront was intended on the one part, 
and no indignation excited on the other. Hospitality 3 was a general Hospitality, 
virtue required by the exigencies, and cultivated by the good feeling, 
of the age : its attentions were as delicate and refined 4 as its parting 
gifts were liberal. 5 He who sought protection from his enemies took 
his seat as a suppliant on the hearth : no time was unseasonable — not 
even the day of a wedding festivity — for the arrival and reception of 
strangers ; 6 and it is not till they have enjoyed the bath and the 
banquet, that their name and their destination are asked. 7 In the 
Homeric poems feasts are described with a frequency and minuteness, 
more tolerable in the original than in any less sonorous and dignified 
language ; but as illustrations of ancient manners they are curious. 
The part which princes and princesses take in preparing them indi- 
cates a period of simplicity ; ^some occupations, indeed, of these 
noble ladies, 8 such as feeding the horses of their lords, bathing their 
guests, 9 and carrying linen to the river to be washed, 10 may offend the Freedom of 
delicacy of modern days : still females at this time seem to have mixed society, 
more freely, and yet more modestly, in the business and the amuse- 
ments of social life, than th'gy did when Greece was more polished 
and refined. 11 The practice of divorce, so common at Athens in later 
times, was unknown to the Greeks of the Heroic age. The usual 
employments of married women are to educate their children, dis- 
tribute tasks to their maid-servants, provide for the table, and " guide 
the house." Occasionally 12 their ears and eyes were gladdened by the 
tidings and the toys of a Phoenician merchant: even as Minna and 
Brenda rejoiced in the arrival of Bryce Snailsfoot, when he visited 
Burgh Westra with his pedlar-wares. 13 Penelope appears among the 

1 Od. xix. 91.— Conf. Thuc. i. 5. 2 Od. iii. 73. 

3 Od. i. 123; vi. 289; II. vi. 15; Od. vi. 310. 

4 Od. viii. 207 ; II. ix. 193 ; xxiv. 582 et seq. 

5 Od. xxiv. 273. Seven talents of gold, a cup of solid silver, 'twelve close 
vests, as many coats, robes, and pieces of tapestry, together with four beautiful 
women. See also Od. viii. 424. On the hospitality of the middle ages, see some 
curious particulars in Eobertson's Charles the Fifth, sect. 1, note 29. 

6 Od. iv. 28. 7 Od. iv. 60. 8 H. viii. 188. 

9 Od. iii. 464. 10 Od. vi. 59. 11 Od. vii. 67 and 71 ; vi. 276. 

12 Od. xv. 415 : (j.vo\ oLyovrz; HuPfAKTa vTi'i pzXouvr,. 13 Pirate, c. xviii. 

2 b 2 



372 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



suitors with authority dignified and mild. Helen does not retire 
when strangers are introduced to Menelaus, and Hector 1 himself pays 
a deferential regard to the opinion of the sex collectively. The passion 
of love in Homer's heroes is, indeed, far removed from that purity, 
sentiment, and individuality, which was the pride and the virtue of 
the knights of chivalry : but it contained many of the elements which 
constitute the happiness of domestic life ; and is immeasurably better 
than the same passion in a later age, when its root was planted in 
intense selfishness, its growth distorted by an absurd policy, and when 
its fruit was, what might be naturally expected, sensuality, gross, 
odious, and universal. 
Convivial In connection with the subject of convivial meetings, Homer fails 
meetings. not ^ make honourable mention of his brother-bards. It has been 
thought his praise of Phemius 2 may have been prompted by gratitude 
for his early instructions. However this may be, the music of the 
Bards. lyre was often put into requisition ; he who instructed and warned his 
hearers as the guardian of morality, or who charmed their hours of 
ease by tales of love and war, held an honourable place at the courts 
of kings. Demodocus, among the vain and opulent Phseacians, has his 
silver- studded throne, 3 his separate table, and his own attendant : he 
sung the strife between the bravest and the most crafty of the chief- 
tains, who met before the walls of Troy ; and roused his hearers to 
the imitation at least of warlike deeds, — athletic exercises at home : 
these trials of dexterity with the javelin, the bow, and the quoit, 
together with hunting, dancing, and perhaps hawking, 4 being the 
ordinary recreations of Grecian life. 
Farm- Such then were the domestic establishments, and such were some 

service. f ^ Q d omes tic customs among the higher classes of society : as we 
descend in the scale, the description is less pleasing; when Peleus 
gave Phoenix a tract of land, the inhabitants passed with it as part of 
the present. 5 Alcinous proposes to his council to be liberal towards 
Odysseus in parting gifts, and he adds, we will repay ourselves by a 
tax on the people. 6 Laertes bought Eurycleia when very young 7 for 
twenty oxen ; Eurymachus proposes to hire Odysseus as a farm servant 
to plant and cut hedges ; for this service he was to be clothed and fed. 8 
Slavery. Slavery existed universally, 9 Egypt, the Greek Islands, Cyprus, and 
Sicily being its chief emporia. Servitude of some kind must always 
prevail, because the idle, the extravagant, and the vicious will squander 
what they possess, and must then earn a subsistence by their labour ; 
but slavery is a state of things which, by the voluptuousness, cruelty, 
and pride which it engenders, has a tendency to entail on one party as 

1 II. vi. 442 ; Od. ii. 101 ; xix. 146 ; xxi. 323. 

2 Eustathius, quoted in Wood, page 81. 3 Od. viii. 65. 
4 Od. xxii. 302. 5 II. ix. 479. « Od. xiii. 15. 

7 U^uQnfinv bt hvffetv, Od. i. 430. 

8 M«r4«V fyttios, sufficient pay, Od. xviii. 356. 

9 Od. xvii. 448 j xx. 383 ; II. xxiv. 752 ; Od. xv. 482. Conf. Thuc. i. 8. 



CUSTOMS OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



373 



much of moral mischief, as it does of personal suffering and degrad- 
ation on the other. It arose, however, out of the habits of the 
times ; for piracy being sanctioned as a profession, and war so frequent, 
those who were carried off from one country as prisoners, were naturally 
sold in another as slaves. Still they were, by this system, at least 
saved from death. It was moreover slavery in a mitigated form, with 
less than usual of its jealousy, distance, and suspicion : fidelity by 
degrees assumed the warmth of attachment; 1 captives identified them- 
selves with the interests or honour of the family they had entered, 
and mourned the death or misfortunes of him to whom destiny had 
assigned them. Sometimes indeed a bloody superstition demanded 
them as a sacrifice 2 to the manes of some departed friend ; and in case 
of delinquency at home, they seem to have met with very summary 
justice. Odysseus, 3 on his return to his palace, hangs twelve of them 
like thrushes in a springe — it is the poet's own comparison ; and the 
chieftain apparently feels as little scruple as the agriculturist, in 
ridding himself, by this simple process, of so many noxious animals. 

1 II. xviii. 28 ; xix. 282; Soph. Ajax, 491 ; Od. xiv. 144; vii. 12. 

2 II. xxiii. 175 ; xviii. 336. 3 Od. xxii. 465, and xviii. 84. 




SECTION II, 
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



Religion of In transferring our attention from the domestic customs of the early 

the F 
age. 



1C Greeks to their religion, we must still content ourselves with the 



same guide. Herodotus could ascend in his researches no higher than 
to Homer and to Hesiod : accordingly he 1 ascribes to these poets the 
structure of Grecian theogony; or that arrangement of attributes, 
forms, and occupations, which it assigns to its deities respectively. 
Some few traces, indeed, the historian himself gives us of a still earlier 
religion, which prevailed among the Pelasgi. Different 2 names for 
different deities did not enter into their forms of worship, their 
sacrifices, or their prayers ; and though this fact will not prove the 
system not to have been polytheistic, it is a sign of its having degene- 
rated less from the truth and simplicity of an original revelation. 
Change from The change from theism to idolatry is easily explained : the mind of 
idoiatr^* man m a certam sense, constitutionally religious ; and yet, being 
unable to rise by unassisted reason to the abstract idea of one perfect 
supreme Being, or to retain the notion firmly, even if it should have 
been conceived, deities were naturally invented, which were personifi- 
cations of all that is great and good in man. The circumstance, 
moreover, that poets were the first teachers of religion, would originate 
Poets the first and perpetuate this error: they who viewed with the eye of taste and 
Grecian ° f g emus tne various beauties of the physical world 3 would soon people 
religion. the mountain and the grove, the glen and the river, with imaginary 
beings. Pretensions to inspiration would frequently be made, and 
readily acknowledged ; the vulgar being unable to refuse a religious 

1 Lib. ii. 53. 2 Lib. ii. 52. 

3 See Wordsworth's Excursion, lib. iv. : "the lively Grecian." 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 375 



system, which the superiority of their instructors imposed on their 
judgment, or unwilling to destroy an illusion which had so many 
charms for their imagination. Perhaps the poets were partly deceived 
by their own fancy: or if not, from the mere love of truth, they would 
not have sacrificed machinery so useful to them, both as authors and as 
courtiers. Its instrumentality made their fictions more pleasing ; and 
their flattery was more acceptable when they could trace to a deity 
the genealogy of their patron, or promise hereafter a participation in 
divine honours to the friendship and the virtues of private life, or to 
him whose abilities were a public benefit. 

Egypt was to the early Greeks what the later Greeks were to the its origin 
rest of the civilized world — the source of their religion, their philo- %yP tian - 
sophy, and their legislation : accordingly, a considerable portion of 
the Homeric theology is of Egyptian parentage. There are circum- 
stances in the geographical situation of that country which will 
account for her early progress in the exact sciences : a clear sky, even 
without a wide horizon, facilitated the observation of the heavenly 
bodies, whose rising and setting marked the seasons of tillage and 
navigation ; while the science of geometry was indispensable to a 
people, the landmarks of whose property were effaced by the annual 
inundations of the Nile. Improvement in manufactures was advanced 
by the opportunities of inland navigation. 1 The powers of the mind 
excited by natural phasnomena, their causes and their consequences, 
soon passed from the study of physics to philosophy and legislation. 
Those, who in other countries were stimulated to the pursuit of know- 
ledge by active curiosity, or the consciousness of superior talents, 
went to Egypt as the place where this curiosity could be most fully 
gratified, and these talents most successfully exercised. Here Thales 
and Pythagoras sought that wisdom which they were to transmit along 
the lines of the Ionic and Italic schools : and here too it is probable 
Homer was an eye-witness of many things which he adapted to his 
religious and mythological system. A tradition to this effect is men- 
tioned by Diodorus Siculus : 2 the Infernal rivers and Elysian fields 
had then real prototypes in the neighbourhood of Memphis, where 
the lives of the dead were subjected to an actual scrutiny, corre- 
sponding with the inquiry and the sentence of the fabled Minos. But Character of 
if the Egyptian theology was partly borrowed by Homer, in his hands jjjgjjj^ 
it was greatly improved. Those deities which were only personifi- 
cations of the various powers of nature became moral agents ; and 
instead of being represented under images of disgusting deformity, 
they become models of human beauty, grace, and majesty. 

Scattering from his pictured urn, 

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn, 

he inspired the statuary, as well as the poet of succeeding ages : the 
skill of Phidias embodied in marble the awful dignity of that Zeus, 



1 Smith's Wealth of Nations, i. 27. 



2 Lib. i. 



376 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



whom Homer's imagination had conceived, and Homer's eloquence de- 
scribed. The inferior deities were supposed to assume at will the human 
form; they wooed the daughters of man; 1 at times they were jealous 
of his skill ; 2 they protected his interests or impeded his enemies like 
tutelary genii ; they shared alike the battle, the feast, 3 and the sacri- 
fice. 4 They were propitiated by votive offerings, libations, 5 and 
prayer : they were provoked by neglect, or by disobedience to such 
laws as were most especially necessary in the existing state of society ; 
and whatever might be the personal vices of these beings, or their 
mutual discord, they were supposed to sanction justice in general, 
respect for oaths, 6 protection to the suppliant, hospitality to the 
stranger, and compassion for the poor. 
No exclusive Another point of difference between the theology of Greece and 
Greece? 1 Egypt; was the existence of the priesthood in the latter country, as an 
united body, possessed of power, wealth, and learning. Perhaps 
these were the heads of the families who originally constituted the 
ruling power : and one being chosen king the rest combined together, 
intervening, like a house of peers, between the prince and the people, 
and assuming to themselves the superintendence of religion as the 
readiest means of promoting general order, and securing their own 
power. In Egypt professions were hereditary : 7 the eldest son of a 
priest became a priest himself on his father's death, inheriting by 
descent the wealth, knowledge, and privileges of the society. Their 
property in land amounted to one-third of the kingdom : 8 their know- 
ledge was considerable and exclusive ; 9 and the natural result of such 
a system was as well adapted to the credulity and superstition of the 
people, as it was to the avarice and ambition of the priests: for 
wherever men are taught to see with the eyes, and believe with the 
understanding, of others, and to remove from themselves the obliga- 
tions of personal piety by laying them on a priesthood, such a plan 
suits the indolence of human nature; conscience or moral feeling is 
pacified by the idea of performing its duty by proxy, and it gladly 
supports and enriches that system of artifice and superstition of which 
it is the willing dupe. 
Union of the In Greece there was no similar system at all; nor was there that 



regal and 
priestly 



political union, stability, and peace, which was necessary to produce 
office. " this effect. The priesthood as a body had no mutual combination, no 
civil power, and no common creed. The right of presiding at public 
sacrifices was in early times a part of the kingly office, and probably 
the head of each family was also its domestic priest. In this cha- 
racter Nestor 10 is introduced in the third book of the Odyssey, his sons 
assisting him in the religious ceremonies ; Achilles also sacrifices to 

1 Od. vi. 280. 2 II. vii. 452. 3 Qd. vii. 199. . 

4 Od. iii. 435. 5 II. vii. 450 and 480 ; ix. 492 et seq. 

6 Od. vi. 207 ; II. iii. 279 ; iv. 160. 

7 See Shuckford's Con., and Herod, ii. 37. 8 Diod. Sic. lib. i. ; 
9 Isoc. Busir. 10 Od. iii. 444. 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



377 



the manes of Patroclus. Still it is likely that those who were 
eminent for worth or sagacity might occasionally be called in to 
preside or to advise. Thus the Iliad opens with a proposal from 
Achilles to inquire the cause of the pestilence by means of some 
" prophet, priest, or interpreter of dreams." Calchas confidently 
declares it. Odysseus on another occasion refers to a previous pre- 
diction of the same augur, and its fulfilment, 1 as a reason for courage 
and perseverance. Of course such circumstances gave room for the 
display both of real sagacity and dexterous fraud : he would be most 
frequently consulted whose answers were worded with most of skilful 
ambiguity ; or who conjectured the future from the past, the effect 
from the cause, by superior acuteness and observation : and if to these 
qualities he added boldness in delivering his predictions, this very 
confidence would, in an age of ignorance and superstition, tend to 
produce their accomplishment. 

The presence, however, of these priestly seers was not necessary to Chief 
render religious ceremonies valid : each head of a family possessed the deities™ 
ordinary rights of priesthood; altars were commonly erected in the 
open air ; and the principal deities of the Homeric poems for whom 
these altars smoke, are Zeus, Poseidon, Athene, and Apollo. The 
supremacy 2 of the first over all the inferior deities is marked decisively. 
His own declaration of this, and the test he proposes, are a curious 
picture of the social condition of the deities. If I, says the great 
king, catch any one of you helping the Trojans or the Greeks, he shall 
either make his escape to Olympus disgraced and bruised, or else I 
will seize him, and throw him into Tartarus. Then you shall know 
my superiority in power. Come now, make the trial ; hang a gold 
chain from heaven, and fasten yourselves at the end of it, all of you, 
gods and goddesses : you cannot pull Zeus down, but, whenever I 
please, I can pull you up with the earth and the sea, wind the chain 
round Olympus, and there you would all dangle in the air. 3 

True it is that the expressions, fate or destiny (/xotpa, alar)), are Fate, or 
frequent ; but, in the mouth of man, these need mean no more than SyttS 
the will of the Supreme Being. Once indeed 4 it seems to come into power, 
collision with that will : Zeus laments that it is Sarpedon's destiny 
(fjtoipa) to die by the hand of Patroclus — Sarpedon his best beloved 
among men — and he hesitates whether he shall save him. Yet, even 
in this case, the answer of Here proves his absolute power : " Do you 
wish to rescue from death a man long doomed by fate" (altri/) ? " Do 
it, but all the rest of us praise you not." iEschylus leaves this diffi- 
culty purposely in mystery in the Prometheus, where, speaking of the 
fates (fj.o~ipai), he says, § 26 — 

Chorus. Is, then, Zeus less powerful than these ? 
Prom. None assuredly can escape destiny. 

Chorus. Why, what destiny has Zeus except everlasting dominion ? 
Prom. That you cannot yet know by inquiry — do not desire it. 



1 II. ii. 330. 
w 3 11 viii. v. 10 to 27. 



2 II. xv. 20; viii. 17 et seq. 
4 II. xvi. 433 to 443. 



378 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



Effect of 
mythology 
on manners. 



Religious 
sanctions. 



At all events, whatever this mysterious power might have been, 
room was so far left for free-will that men 1 were chargeable with their 
own crimes and follies. The Stoics stated this difficulty, and perhaps 
thought they had solved it in this sentence : " Semel jussit, semper 
paret," or, "Zeus first made the law, and thereafter obeys it." An 
attempt has been made to explain the several parts of Homer's theo- 
logical system by allegory; but this interpretation is, in its details, 
more absurd — more revolting to common sense — than the theology 
which it attempts to vindicate. The true account is that given by the 
Scholiast on II. xiii. 521 (quoted by Coleridge, p. 189): "In the 
poet the gods are conceived corporeally, and appear in human form, 
differing from men in their immortality alone, and subject to the same 
passions." 2 In fact, what reason did not dictate, reason cannot 
explain. 

The virtues have already been mentioned, which these fabulous 
inhabitants of Olympus were supposed especially to sanction : viola- 
tions, nevertheless, of their own laws might be abundantly illustrated 
by their own examples. It has, indeed, been said, that these exam- 
ples would not exert a pernicious influence on the morals and character 
of men, because there was no positive injunction to imitate them. 
But human nature would naturally palliate its vices by appealing to 
such respectable authority, and in later times we know such was the 
fact. Plato says, the Cretans made this use of the story of Zeus and 
Ganymede f first inventing the tale, and then justifying their own 
wickedness. In that amusing dialogue 4 in one of the comedies of 
Aristophanes, in which a personification of equity and a personification 
of villany plead their causes, the latter uses, with adroitness and 
success, the traditionary tales of Grecian mythology, to " make the 
worse appear the better reason ;" and to show that chastity, honesty, 
and such homely virtues, were neither encouraged by the example, 
nor rewarded by the protection, of the gods. The graver testimony 
of Isocrates 5 traces some of these fables to Orpheus, who degraded the 
deities to the level of the worst of mankind, and was torn to pieces 
for the mischievous impiety and falsehood of his inventions. 

Such, however, as early Grecian morality was, its sanctions were 
administered partly in this world and partly in another. Temporal 
punishment overtook the guilty ; or, if they seemed to be successful, 
the pangs of conscience interrupted their enjoyment: though Zeus 
may suffer them to carry safe to their home the spoils of piracy and 
unjust aggression, still " the strong alarm of anxiety falls upon their 
mind." 6 The Furies have the office 7 of punishing the wicked after 
death. The good have different localities allotted to them. Heracles 



1 Od. i. 32. 

2 The whole system of Pagan polytheism is exposed with much acuteness and 
drollery in the third book of Cicero's treatise, De Natura Deorum, 16 to 25. 

3 ivce, Wo/jitvoi to* faw xcttJirwvTa.i xeti <ra,urw rhv h^vvm. — De Legibus, lib. i. 

4 Nub. ' ' 5 Busir. Laud. e Qd. xiv. 88 ; II. iv. 161. 
7 II. xix. 259. 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



379 



is "with the immortal gods," but his shade is in Hades, practising 
archery with great zeal. 1 

Menelaus has a promise that the gods will speed him to Elysium 
and the ends of the earth — 

From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow, 
Mould the round hail or flake the fleecy snow, 
But from the breezy deep, the blest inhale 
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale. 

Pope's Od. iv. 774. 

Ajax retains in Hades his haughty sullenness, and Orion still chases 
wild beasts ; but neither the dignity nor the diversions of the abode 
can reconcile Achilles to his lot : he tells Odysseus he had rather be 
the hireling of a poor farmer on earth than king of all the ghosts 
(Od. xi. 488). This was the sentiment that moved so much the 
indignation of Plato : verily darkness covered the' earth, and " gross 
darkness the people." 2 

When the deities plead among each other the cause of their sacrificial 
favourites on earth, exactness and liberality in the rites of sacrifice rites ' 
hold a high place among the moral virtues. Such was the excel- 
lence of Priam 3 and his people : and when Athene is contrasting 
Odysseus with iEgistheus, for the very purpose of engaging the favour 
of Zeus, this is the foremost plea. 4 It is not written in Homer's 
theology, " Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and 
sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? behold, to ^)bey is 
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." 5 This 
part of the Pagan ritual was at once a festival, a banquet, and a 
religious offering : the poet's descriptions of it are frequent and 
minute. 6 It is remarkable, that similar institutions have prevailed 
alike in the civilized and uncivilized world ; whether they were the 
spontaneous suggestions of human gratitude and fear, or whether they 
were a fragment of an original revelation, rolled down the stream of 
time, and moulded by the hand of different nations into various un- 
sightly shapes. 

But we are now to view these votive offerings in connection with 
another important part of Pagan religion — the art of divination. And 
here, again, attention is invited by the universality of the practice: Divination, 
no age has been too ignorant, or too enlightened, to feel a strong 
desire to pry into futurity, and a strong belief that such an insight 
is attainable. Nor is it difficult to account for this, upon the known 
principles of human nature : they who enjoy prosperity are anxious 
about its continuance : they who are in misfortune look forward 
earnestly to a change : the contemplative mind perceives so much in 

1 Od. xi. 600. 

2 See on this subject a paper in the Classical Museum, No. 4, 1844. 
8 II. iv. 47 ; xxiv. 70. * Od. i. 60. 

6 1 Sam. xv. 22. There is a better feeling in a fragment of Menander, beginning — 

6 Od. iii. 430 ; II. i. 458. 



380 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



Divination, the ordinary course of events which perplexes reason, that it hopes, 
from a knowledge of the future, that explanation which the past and 
the present deny. Where there is credulity on one hand, there will 
be fraud on the other : there will be either enthusiasts or deceivers, 
who will imagine or invent what popular feeling demands. Not, 
however, that all predictions of antiquity must of necessity be referred 

Of various to these two sources. Some had their origin in real science; as 
when Thales foretold an eclipse ; and many more were doubtless the 
result of shrewd sagacity 1 exercised on facts and characters, and of 
observations registered by a retentive memory, which invested pre- 
dictions with such a rational probability, as was often borne out by 
the event. Still, where these qualifications were the real means of 
divination, other instruments would be ostensibly employed to give a 
mysterious dignity to the craft. Their choice and application indicate 
folly and superstition, but in very different degrees. That the favour 
or displeasure of the deities might be supposed to be revealed by any 

Dreams. unusual natural phenomena — that dreams should be thought to have 
the nature of divine communications — if it is not reasonable, is at least 
intelligible: but it does indeed exemplify the "fears of the brave" 
and "the follies of the wise," that they should seek to penetrate 
futurity by noticing the flight of birds, or suspend important under- 
takings on the inspection of a sacrificed victim. Yet such follies 
prevailed, not only in the early ages of Grecian histoiy, but in the 

Lightning, maturity of her refinement and intellect. 2 Lightning 3 on the right, or 
an eagle on the left, 4 could gladden or afflict the heart of Homer's 
m heroes: Teiresias appears on the stage, 5 doubtless in conformity with 

Flight of . ,. . . rr . i ° t i r t-- j 

birds. ancient tradition, interpreting the gestures and the notes ot birds. 

Victims. Divination, 6 however, by victims prevailed longer and more exten- 
sively. The tragic poets are frequent in their description of these 
rites ; disastrous omens were a struggling victim, an imperfect forma- 
tion, 7 or a dull flame. 8 On the other hand, the favour of heaven was 
indicated by a clear fire, mounting like a pyramid, dispersed by no 
wind, extinguished by no showers, and feeding rapidly on a complete 

Popular and perfect sacrifice. It was in. patient expectation of some such 

dfvination appearances that the Lacedaemonians 9 and Tegecetas sustained at 
Platasa the charge of the Persian cavalry, and " because the victims 
were not favourable, there fell of them at that time very many, and 
far more were wounded." Such a sacrifice of life could only have 
been made by a real belief in divination on the part of the generals 
or the soldiers, or of both. 10 What the more educated and enlightened 
minds might have thought on the subject it is not easy to ascertain. 
Plutarch 11 has preserved a tradition that the great question, whether 

1 II. xviii. 250 et seq. 2 Conf. (Ed. Col. 1456. 3 II. ii. 353. 

4 II. xii. 225. In divination the Greeks faced the north (II. xii. 240) ; the 
Romans faced the south. 

5 Antig. 1000. 6 Ezekiel, xxi. 21. 7 Eurip. Elect. 826. 
8 Antig. 1006. 9 Herod, ix. 61. 

10 Plut. in Aristid. i 1 In Themist. 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



381 



the Grecian fleet should risk a battle at Salamis, was determined in Belief in 
conference by the appearance of an owl. Whether this were an acci- dlvmatl0n 
dent, or whether it were a trick, the fact, if it be true, is a curious 
proof that -where courage and wisdom failed to persuade, superstition 
saved the liberties of Greece. The dramatic writers were wiser in 
their generation : picturesque descriptions of these ceremonies suited 
their purpose as poets : they were in keeping with the characters 
introduced, with ancient tradition, and religious feeling. But the 
chorus, the appointed organ by which the instructive reflections of the 
author were to act on the public mind, expresses itself on these sub- 
jects w T ith all the freedom 1 of incredulity. " As for the declarations 
of prophets," says Euripides, 2 by the mouth of one of his personages, 
" I have seen how worthless they are, and full of deceit ; there is 
nothing sound (or trustworthy) in the sacrificial flame, or the notes of 
the winged tribe : and verily it is a simple thing to fancy that birds 
can aid mankind." Sentiments of equal boldness are to be found in 
the tragedies of Sophocles. 3 With such passages recorded and circu- 
lated (for the moral sentiments of Euripides, especially, were fami- 
liarly remembered and repeated), it is a curious fact, that minds like shared by 
those of Xenophon and Socrates should still remain entangled in the s ° me , 
absurdities of divination. The latter condemns, indeed, the habit of minds, 
consulting the gods on cases which common sense may determine, but 
he unequivocally expresses his belief that they do hold correspondence 
with mankind. 4 The philosophic Xenophon, in his character of an 
historian, relates his dreams 5 and their verification with as much 
gravity as his military movements. When the army suffers from cold, 
a sacrifice is performed to the north wind : " whereupon it appeared 
most evidently to all, that the severity of the blast ceased." Xenophon 
was prevented from accepting 6 the sole command of the army by the 
recollection that he had seen an eagle settling on the ground near 
Ephesus ; which omen the augurs interpreted to mean some station of 
publicity and honour, attended with anxiety and toil. It is, indeed, a 
strong proof of the tenacity with which superstition may fix itself on 
minds even of extraordinary excellence, that Xenophon could not 
emancipate himself from its follies by the power of a philosophical 
education, by the familiar society of the best and wisest man of Pagan 
antiquity, by long experience of active life, and by various and exten- 
sive studies pursued in the tranquillity of retirement. 

Such is a brief sketch of the social customs of the Homeric age and Social life 
its religious ceremonies, with a prospective view of the latter at a later ci™i" Z ed. 
period; the value which they held in popular estimation, the scepticism 
of some superior minds, and the credulity of others. The picture has 
its lights and shades strongly contrasted. The earliest condition of social 
life, where we can trace it, exhibits much that is rude, unpolished, 

1 Eur. Helen. 764; (Ed. Tyr. 500. 2 Helen. 750. 

» (Ed. Tyr. 708 ; Ajax, 1419 ; Pind. 01. xii. 10. 

4 Xenoph. Mem. i. 1. 5 Anab. 4 and 6. 6 Anab. 6. 



382 



RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. 



and inconvenient, with much that is splendid in costly equipage, and 
elegant in the ornamental arts. 1 Signs there are of taste and delicate 
feeling in generous hospitality ; and of personal integrity and domestic 
affection, combined with ferocity in war, and licentiousness in peace. 
The human mind in the same age — nay, in the same individual — was 
debased by childish absurdities, and yet capable of teaching much that 
was admirable in morality, and much that was profound in speculation. 
There was, indeed, the nominal recognition of one Supreme Being : 2 
but the truth of tins doctrine was tarnished, and its practical use 
destroyed, by the admission of subordinate deities to share in his 
Bad theology prerogatives of praise and prayer. Still, even the pagan priesthood, 
better than with q\\ its fraud and its folly, was probably productive of more good 
than evil. 3 They found the tradition of a revelation universally preva- 
lent : where they combined together, as in Egypt, religion was indeed 
made an engine of political power ; yet this was better than anarchy. 
Where they did not, as in Greece, it was degraded by various follies ; 
yet even these were better than atheism. The priesthood in Egypt 
were the depositaries of the learning of the age : in Greece, though 
they were not teachers of religious doctrines, but rather performers of 
religious rites, yet they were the intermediate agents by which the 
voice of prayer, praise, or humiliation, was transmitted to the objects 
of their public worship, and thus probably kept alive some feelings of 
religion in the hiunan mind. 
Social Polybius 4 and Livy testify, respecting a later period, that when the 

!nSeased ty ' influence of the priesthood was greatest, then there was most of 
after the ' public and private worth : 5 in proportion, moreover, as this ' influence 
Homeric age. declined, the people became gradually worse. That which they assert 
of the history of Kome is true also of the history of Greece. 6 The 
religion of Homer's time was bad; but the irrehgion of succeeding 
ages was worse : for those minds which were capable of removing the 
rubbish of error were not capable of establishing the fabric of truth. 
If the social 7 manners of Homer's time were bad, those of the age of 
Pericles were worse : and when society had received the last polish of 
refinement, and human intellect the last discipline of cultivation, then 
it was that civil polity was most destitute of religion, and private life 
most regardless of virtue. 

i II. xxiv. 657. 2 II. i. 567 and 580. 

3 " The right conceit that they had, that to perjury vengeance is due, was not 
without good effect, as touching the course of their lives." Hooker's Eccl. Pol. 
lib. v. 1. 

4 Hist. vi. 54. Cic. de Divin. 5 cic. de Nat. De. lib. ii. 3. 

6 Conf. At. Pol. v. 11. Xenoph. Mem. i. 4, ad fin: 

VlOUTCCTCi. — X. T. X. 

7 It cannot be denied that the women of Homer occupied a more worthy position 
in the household than those of the so-called Historic period (see especially Od. vii. 
67, the character of Arete). The reason for this cannot be ascertained, as we have 
no certain accounts of the intervening centuries which brought about such a revo- 
lution. — Bekker's Charicles, excursus (or appendix) to scene 1 2, page 339. 



SECTION III. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 

In taking leave of that period of early history which the Iliad and Evil effects 
Odyssey embrace, no guide is to be found who can adequately supply ^jan war 
their place. Homer's successors 1 inherited his name without his 
genius; but they deserve the gratitude of posterity for having pre- 
served and circulated, in their character of rhapsodists, the several 
books of the Mseonian bard. There is a probable tradition, that 
Lycurgus brought these from Ionia into Greece. There they became 
incorporated in the national education : Peisistratus, as has already 
been observed, compared the extant versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, 
fixed their text, engraved the whole or parts of it, and arranged the 
several books in their present order : 2 Hipparchus ordered them to be 
recited at the Panathensea : they delighted the martial spirit of the 
Spartan, the cultivated taste of the Athenian, and became familiar to 
both, as a lesson of exalted patriotism. 

The period, however, which elapsed between the composition of in disqusii. 
these poems, and their established recitation during one of the most Greeksfor 
imposing public festivals at Athens, is involved in great obscurity, pacific 
The effect of the Trojan war was to plunge Greece again into bar- occu P atlons - 
barism. It had, indeed, combined the Greeks, as a nation, in one 
general enterprise ; an union which they were proud to acknowledge, 
when contrasting themselves in triumphant superiority with men of 
other tongues, and which they were nevertheless ready to violate 

1 Schol. on Pindar; Nem. Ode ii. 1. 

2 Cic. de Or. iii. 34 : " Homeri libros confusos antea sic disposuisse dicitur ut 
nunc habemus." 



384 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



whensoever separate interests gave rise to rival claims. It might 
partially have prevented the evils of an excessive population : but this 
advantage was dearly bought. Habits formed amidst a ten-years' 
predatory warfare, disqualified those who returned for sedentary and 
pacific occupations. Their place, too, knew them no more. Cities 
had received the authority of new masters ; fresh domestic connections 
had been formed, to the injury or the exclusion of the absent ; some 
resumed their station, but it was by violence and bloodshed, while 
others, unable or unwilling to purchase their restoration at such a price, 
emigrated in search of safer residences. Scarcely had these domestic 
dissensions subsided, when fresh disturbances and fresh emigrations 
were the consequences of a foreign invasion. The Heraclidse issued 
from the mountains of Doris, and succeeded in establishing their 
dominion in the Peloponnesus eighty years 1 after the capture of Troy. 
Wealth of Such repeated convulsions of course checked the progress of agri- 
Connth. culture and arts, of literature and civilization : they who cultivated the 
inland country were never sure that a more powerful horde of invaders 
would not reap the fruit of their labours ; while many of those spots 
on the coast, which offered every advantage for commercial under- 
takings, were left untenanted, for fear of the merchant-pirates who 
swept the seas. Corinth, however, had risen into very early 2 opulence ; 
being planted on an isthmus, washed by the waters of two ample bays, 
one of which spread its arms for the shipping of the Archipelago, and 
the other invited the commerce of the west : from her dock-yards were 
launched the first Grecian triremes. The genius of her sovereign, 
Periander, conspired with these local advantages, and this naval skill : 
and a grateful nation commemorated his wealth and his wisdom, on 
the shores of that ocean to which he early turned her attention, as the 
source of opulence, stability, 3 and power. 4 
Population of ^ ne aggrandisement and fame of the people of -A ttica sprung from 
Attica not a very different cause — the union of a people who held their possessions 
migratory. WI fchout interruption, because their soil was too poor to invite spolia- 
tion. 5 Foreigners, who were driven from other districts by civil discord 
or by war, found there the security of a settled government ; which, 
having its origin in Cecrops, and being consolidated by Theseus, had 
struck its roots so deeply in the feelings and interests of the people, 
that it suffered less than other states in the turbulent period that fol- 
lowed the siege of Troy. Security produced refinement ; 6 armour was 
exchanged for linen dresses : golden grasshoppers bound back the hair, 
being emblems of a favourite 7 national opinion, that the original inha- 
bitants of Attica were Athenians. Of these two cities, which rose 
into early eminence by the operation of causes so essentially different, 
Corinth requires not any further consideration. Materials connected 
with the private life of its inhabitants are scanty : in literature it was 

1 Thuc. lib. i. 2 II. ii. 570 ; conf. Thuc. lib. i. 13. 

3 Pindar, 01. xiii. 5. 4 Diog. Laer. 5 Thuc. lib. i. 2. 

» Thuc. lib. i. 7 Soph. (Ed. Col. 728. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



385 



undistinguished; its government suffered less from factions in pro- 
portion as it was administered with less of injustice : wealth and ease 
produced their natural effect on domestic manners, and at length the 
very name of this city became proverbial 1 for everything that was 
licentious and corrupt. 

From this point, then, it is intended to trace Athenian 2 education, Athenian 
both bodily and mental, in its several stages, and the subjects cor- contrasted 
responding or contrasted with these at Sparta ; to examine the relations with Spartan, 
which existed between master and slave in these two states, and then 
to enter on an investigation of the state of their female society. 

When a child was born in a private Athenian family, if it was a infanticide 
daughter, a fillet of wool was suspended at the door : the sex of the hi Athens, 
infant was thus indicated by the symbol of her appropriate occupation. 
The birth of a son was marked by a crown of that olive which was 
the choicest 3 production of national culture, and comiected in the 
traditions of mythology with the beneficence and protection of his 
patron-goddess. The state gave to the parent an atrocious and un- 
natural privilege : he might refuse to preserve and rear his own 
offspring. 4 This blasting of human life in the bud, the legislator saw 
with indifference ; but this point decided, he took every precaution that 
the rights of the new citizen should be registered with speed and 
precision. At a public festival, the father assisted at a sacrifice, and 
secured those political advantages which the infant inherited, by 
swearing that it was his child by an Athenian wife, in wedlock. 
From this time the mother, assisted by a pedagogue, who was com- 
monly a domestic slave, superintended the education of her children : 
the girls were taught to read and write, to sew, to spin, and dance ; 
the latter accomplishment was not so much to vary the monotony of a 
secluded life, or even to enlarge the amusements of social mirth, as to 
qualify them to bear their part in the religious processions to which 
they were admitted at the age of ten ; and in which their steps and 

Ov Tavro; av^oj tU KogivDov ttrriv o vr'kovit. 

Vet. Schol. Hor. Ep. i. xvii. 36. 

2 See a dissertation on this subject by Adolphus Cramer, of Wiesbaden, 1833, 
and the authorities therein quoted. 

3 Soph. (Ed. Col. 694. 

4 Terence, who portrayed Greek manners, being, as Caesar called him, a semi- 
Menander, has the following dialogue between a husband, Chremes, and his wife, 
Sostrata, about their infant daughter : — 

Chremes. I know what you have done ; you have brought it up. 

Sostrata. By no means : but there was here a respectable old woman of 
Corinth : I gave it to her to be exposed. 

Chremes. Oh, Jupiter ! that there should be such folly in your mind. 

Sostrata. If I have offended, my dear Chremes, I acted ignorantly. 

Chremes. This I know, however you may deny it, you say and do everything 
without sense or foresight : why, first of all, if you had chosen to perform my 
orders, the child ought to have been killed, instead of your pretending to say she 
was dead when you had really given her a chance of life. — Heautontim., Act 3, 
Scene 5. 

[H. G.] 2 C 



386 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



their voices were attuned to the praise of the national deities. When 
sons passed from the immediate care of the mother, their education 
Education, was divided into three parts : the development of the mind was 
schofitTcf 11 ' 1 entrusted first to the grammarian, and afterwards to the musician; 

while the body was disciplined by the exercises of the Palaestra and 
Gymnasium. Education reduced to system, and regulated by law, 
may be referred to the time of Solon : it progressed rapidly after the 
Persian war, and attained its perfection in the days of Pericles : after 
that time it was gradually undermined by luxury, which enfeebled the 
body, and by the system of the Sophists, which corrupted the mind. 
In the Iliad, Phoenix stands towards Achilles in the relation of tutor- 
f companion ; this relation, under the name of IIcuBaywyoe, was recog- 

nised, and regulated by law in Solon's time. Plato thought such a 
companion and guide as necessary for boys as a shepherd for a flock. 
His office (which, in fact, was common to Greece, except Lacedaemon) 
was to conduct the youths to and from school, and attend them in the 
city; some severity of discipline was permitted to them, and some 
share of the domestic education. In the meantime, public education 
was, in the best 1 times of the republic, uniform and common to all 
whose condition entitled them to share thereafter in public affairs ; 
thus the schoolfellows of one generation became the fellow-patriots, or 
rivals, of another. Scholastic establishments were under the care of 
public officers called 2w0pov«7rai (Moderators) : the feelings and senti- 
ments which they endeavoured to implant were a love of the honourable 
and the beautiful, filial respect, patriotic love, obedience to the laws, 
and reverence towards the deities: this last feeling, hiaidaijjiovia, 
remained as a trait of Athenian character till the time of St. Paul, 
and in Acts xvii. 22, the word "superstitious " is not well chosen to 
express it. 

Gymnastics. The importance attached to gymnastic exercises, we are not likely, in 
modern times, to appreciate aright. At Athens, to be a soldier was 
the duty and the delight of every genuine citizen : the fate of battles, 
moreover, depended on individual strength, prowess, and example, in 
a far greater degree than modem warfare permits : and the same 
qualifications repaid with glory the state that encouraged them, when 
her sons were victorious in the athletic exercises of the public festivals 
of Greece. A system, then, which communicated to the human 
frame so much of flexibility, elegance, and vigour, was applicable to 
all alike. It had been admitted in the time of Solon, and was in 
general use when Themistocles was a boy. It furnished for Athens 
the soldier who defended her liberties, the Pancratiast who ex- 
alted her name amidst competitors in the national games, and those 

1 Many of the Athenian soldiers who were taken captive at Syracuse bettered 
their condition by their literature ; hence there was a proverbial saying at that 
time, " Either he is dead or turned schoolmaster," nrot Ti&r/iziv % libaami ygd./*- 
f*a.7x. OvTi ygappoira, ohTi n7v WifraTui, was another proverb : " He can neither 
swim nor read." — Cramer, p. 23. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



387 



perfect models of manly beauty which exercised the genius of her Gymnastics, 
artists. 

For these sports a public place was appointed, called the Gymnasium, 
where a magistrate presided. 1 It con- 
tained, besides the Palaestra, where those 
wrestled who were athletse by profession, 
the stadium for races, and the xystus, a 
covered gallery for the wrestlers, large 
halls opening into a square court, 2 baths, 
porticoes, and groves to which the Athe- 
nians resorted for exercise or idleness, for 
private meditation or philosophical dis- 
pute. Here, too, the Athenian youth 
wrestled, 3 leaped, threw the javelin, and the quoit, and tried their 
breath and speed by racing in deep sand. 4 At eighteen, they were 
admitted into the class of Ephebi, and assumed the military character ; 
each bound himself by an oath not to quit his post, not to dishonour 
the republic, nor to cease from attempting to extend her frontiers as 
long as there were wheat, barley, vineyards, and olive-trees beyond it. 
During the first year they did not serve out of Attica : at twenty, a 
solemn act registered them in their respective tribes, and it is probable 
they were admitted then to the full rights of citizens. 

In the meantime their mental faculties 5 were cultivated by means Morals and 
which, without exactly answering to any one system of modern rell § 10n - 
instruction, combined the peculiarities of several. Some principles of 
religion and conduct were early learnt at home : for a moral sense is 
implanted in every breast ; and a mother's affection will always cul- 
tivate this with as much of purity and knowledge, as the state of 
society admits. The pupils who frequented the public schools at 
early dawn, returned in the evening ; 6 so that although these insti- 
tutions were the source of learning, home was its sanctuary • and the 
lessons of scholastic or moral discipline had their range and their 
application in the sphere of domestic life. The offices of the gram- 
marian and musician were sometimes discharged by the same individual, Music, 
and it is neither easy nor necessary to mark their exact limits. The 
name of the former indicates that his instructions were elementary : 
generally he taught reading and writing, the latter either on waxen 
tablets or engraved metal ; but the Greeks, by fiovaacrj, meant much 
more than the term music expresses. It was, indeed, a very compre- 
hensive word, implying all that was elegant, either in literature or art. 7 
Music, in its modern sense, being a part of it, was 8 cultivated gene- 
rally as an art and science. " After the repulse of Xerxes, a Lacedae- 
monian, exhibiting, at his own expense, a chorus of music himself 

1 See Cramer and the authorities on gymnastics. 

9 See the plates in Anach. Travels. 3 U. xxiii. 710. 4 Lucian. 

5 See St. John, vol. i. ch. iy. 6 Plato, Lysis, and iEschin. in Timarch. 

7 Athenseus, xiv. p. 628. 8 Ar. Pol. lib. viii. trans, by Gillies. 

2 C 2 




388 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



instrumental played on the flute, and there was then scarcely an Athenian citizen 
totally unacquainted with this instrument, as appears by the picture 
dedicated by Thrasyppus, of the musical exhibition." The double 
pipe was often accompanied by the lyre. 1 Alcibiades, however, set 
his fashionable influence against the pipe or flute, because it deranged 
the beauty of his features (Plutarch), and for this reason, or for others, 
it " was proscribed in education, and its use forbidden to freemen." 2 
Themistocles played upon neither ; the vanity of the man probably 
pleased itself with this deficiency, which introduced his famous saying, 
" It is true I never learned how to tune a harp, nor to play upon a lute, 
but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory 
and greatness." 3 

Ethical Certain it is that music as a political and ethical instrument of edu- 

nmsic ° f cation had more influence over the susceptible population of Athens 
than it has now. The grave view of this subject may be found in 
Aristotle's Politics, in Plato's Republic, and the first book of Quinc- 
tilian ; the jocose and satirical view in the sixth chapter of the Memoirs 
of Martinus Scriblerus — a work in which the wit and humour of 
Swift, Pope, and Atterbury are brought to bear on the social condition 
of the Greeks, and the ancient commentators upon it. 4 
Literature. The earliest patrons of literature were the Peisistratidge ; their plan of 
diffusing knowledge, by inscribing passages from various authors on 
columns in the public streets, proves the scarcity of books. All that 
was valuable, probably found its way to their collected library : the 
process of transcribing was costly and laborious, so that oral instruction 5 
was the principal medium of education. Its chief materials were 
parts of the laws, the proverbial sentences of wise men, the fables of 
iEsop, the verses of Hesiod, Simonides, and Solon, the early lyric 

1 Hor. Ep. ix. 5. 2 Gillies, Ar. Pol. viii. 

3 Langhorne's Plutarch. 

4 " I have here," says Cornelius, " a small lyre of my own, framed, strung, and 
tuned, after the ancient manner. I can play some fragments of Lesbian tunes, and 
I wish I were to try them upon the most passionate creatures alive." " You never 
had a better opportunity," says Albertus, "for yonder are two apple-women scold- 
ing." With that Cornelius jumps out into his balcony, his lyre in hand, in his 
slippers, a stocking upon his head, and waistcoat of murrey-coloured satin upon 
his body. The uncouth instrument, the strangeness of the man and of the muwc, 
drew the ears and eyes of the whole mob, and at last of the combatants. They 
all approached the balcony in as close attention as Orpheus' first audience of cattle. 
This sudden effect of his music encouraged him mightily. The mob laughed, sang, 
jumped ; all which he judged to be caused by the various strains and modulations. 
" Mark," quoth he, " in this the power of the Ionian ; in that you see the effect of 
the iEolian." But in a little time they began to grow riotous and threw stones. 
Cornelius then withdrew. "Brother," said he, "do you observe I have mixed 
unawares too much of the Phrygian ; I might change it to the Lydian and soften 
their riotous tempers ; but it is enough. If this lyre in my unskilful hands can 
perform such wonders, what must it not have done in those of a Timotheus or a 
Terpander ?" 

5 Hence uxavuv means what we express by the verb to read. Note also the use 
of "Dictare," Hor. Sat. i. 10, 75, and Ep. ii. 1, 71. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



389 



poets and tragedians, Theognis, 1 Solon, and Homer ; the latter would Literature. 

naturally, in most cases, supersede the rest ; if the imagination was to 

be cultivated at the expense of the other faculties (and it could 

scarcely be otherwise where literature was chiefly poetry), at least, it 

was under excellent tuition. Besides, from no other work could so 

much geographical knowledge be acquired as from the catalogue of 

ships in the second book of the Iliad ; accordingly, boys learnt them 

by heart ; the traditions also which are there preserved (and history 

flowed only in the channel of tradition), are more unbroken and more 

probable than those even of a later age : while the spirit which the 

study of Homer engendered, was a spirit of patriotic enterprise ; an 

emulation of those achievements which the heroes of ancient Greece 

had performed, and which the poets of ancient Greece had sung. 2 As Results of the 

books were scarce, the range of instruction was of course scanty ; but JjJJJ^ of 

from oral teaching there resulted these advantages :■ — it imposed on all 

parties the necessity of speaking with accuracy and distinctness ; and 

hence arose a quick and nice discrimination of all that is either excel- 




lent or defective in pronunciation. Music, moreover, was never 
detached from poetry, and hence the Athenian ear was habitually alive 
to melody. It is obvious, too, that he who commits to memory well- 
selected passages of poetry, is likely to have a more lively perception 
of their beauty, and to cultivate his taste far more effectually than by 
their mere perusal. And the Athenians, who were a talking, rather 
than a reading, people, would unconsciously, if not by design, employ 
the stores of their memory to enrich and polish the language of daily 
conversation. If this was the natural course of things, it was accele- 
rated both by the public policy and the private character of Pericles ; Fends* and 
the former drew the people from the country to the town, and de- As P as!a - 
teriorated their general character, in proportion as he interfered with 
the habits and the virtues of a rustic life. But the same measure was 

1 Isocr. ad Nicoclem. 
On the trade in books see Bekkex*, Excursus 2, Scene 3. 



390 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



Patrons of 
polished 
society and 
literature. 



Progress of 
civilization. 



Fine arts. 



Herodotus. 



the cause of that concentration of talent, and that collision of minds, 
which a metropolis only can bring into play, and thus aided the 
progress of refinement. In private life, he was the first to temper the 
wisdom of philosophers and statesmen, by the grace, elegance, and 
accomplishments of Aspasia and her friends ; if the Peisistratidse were 
the first patrons of literature, the patron of polite society was Pericles. 

From the usurpation of Peisistratus to the time when Pericles began 
to have a share in public affairs, there was an interval of ninety-one 
years. It was a spirit-stirring period : Athens was laying the found- 
ation of her military fame and her naval greatness, and displaying that 
indestructible love of liberty, to which she owed her ascendancy in 
Greece. There was more intercourse with foreigners than there had 
been previously, and, for a time at least, more union among the 
Greeks : there was also the excitement of civil discord, and the glory 
of foreign conquest: it was a period calculated, not indeed for the 
cultivation of pacific pursuits, but to rouse all the energies of a great 
nation. These causes brought a vast deal of ability into play ; while 
the course of things was tending rapidly to the establishment of a 
government essentially popular, which extended equality of patronage 
to every variety of excellence. The soldier, 
the poet, and the musician, were all 
held in honour: many combined their 
several qualifications; iEsehylus chose to 
have recorded on his tomb the single dis- 
tinction of having fought at Marathon. 
The artist was proverbially a welcome 
guest : if his arm did not share in those 
battles which secured the independence 
of Athens, his art immortalised their 
memory. The portrait of Miltiades was 
painted by Panaenus on the walls of the 
Pcecile. Brazen statues reminded the 
nation what it owed to Harmodius and 
AristogTton. 1 Poetry celebrated their 
patriotism in one of those popular songs, 2 which enlivened domestic 
festivities, and told of their reward in the islands of the blessed 
among the most celebrated of Homer's heroes. 

Where the fine arts are honoured, they will thrive : Cimon encou- 
raged their progress ; when he led the way, the aristocratical party 
followed; and the national taste, genius, and powers of execution 
could not fail to develop themselves with rapidity and success, where 
Phidias wrought under the patronage of Pericles, 3 in a city peopled 
with statues, and crowned by the incomparable Parthenon. 

Such was the public encouragement which a free state extended to 
the fine arts ; although the practice of drawing 4 was not introduced 




1 Ar. Khet. i. 9. 
8 Paus. lib. i. 



2 'Ev ftvgrov xkuTi to |/<p«j (^o^nuca. ». <r. X. 
4 It is mentioned in Aristotle's Politics. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



391 



till a later period into the habits of domestic life. Such, too, were Herodotus, 
the early materials of liberal education in Greece, till they were 
enlarged and improved by the recitation of the history of Herodotus 
at the games of the 81st Olympiad, and also twelve years later, at the 
Panathenaea at Athens. Its style, its subject, and the character of its 
author, were admirably adapted to the age : its form is occasionally 
dramatic, and it is enlivened by much that is essentially poetical : its 
graceful and picturesque narrations, diffuse without tediousness, have 
not lost their charm even for those whom a wide choice and variety 
of excellence might naturally have made fastidious. How great, then, 
must that charm have been for a people to whom prose composition 
was as yet a pleasing novelty ! The chief subject, moreover, of the 
historian, was the triumph of Greece in general over the gigantic power 
of Persia, and the vindication of herself and her colonies from foreign 
slavery and degradation. His details brought prominently into view 
the rapid progress of Athenian greatness ; the universal homage 1 paid 
to one of her leading citizens ; and her own public spirit in its best 
and rarest form. 2 His character also gave him an additional hold on 
the mind and feelings of his hearers. 3 His honesty proclaimed before 
assembled Greece, that Athens had saved their liberties, and this 
eulogium, which she felt to be agreeable, she must also have known 
to be just. He did not, indeed, profess so grave and dignified a 
purpose as that of bequeathing a possession to the latest posterity ; 
nor had he the necessary discrimination for it : but that which he 
could not execute, the age did not require ; and the very credulity 
which induced him, in his extensive travels, to report, on the evidence 
of others, much that is marvellous, made his work far more delightful 
to Athenian curiosity, than it would have been had his judgment been 
more exact, and had he drawn more accurately the line between fact 
and fiction. 

But in every age, and amidst every civilized people, there will be Early Greek 
minds whose earnestness of inquiry, and force of penetration, require P hlloso P h y- 
more than the invention of the poet, or the narration of the historian. 
The restless activity of intellect which was characteristic of an 
Athenian, was likely to increase the number of those who were dis- 
satisfied with the elementary education of the grammarian and musician. 
These would be encouraged by the researches and example of the 
Ionic school ; Thales was its founder, and it passed 4 through the hands 
of Anaximenes, Anaximander, and Diogenes to Anaxagoras, who was 
the instructor of Pericles. 5 

Early Greek philosophy was divided 6 into three parts: physics, 

1 Lib. viii. 123. 2 Lib. viii. 41 and 52. 

3 Lib. vii. 139. 4 Cic> de Nat> Deor _ it 10< 

5 Most of the philosophers were of Asiatic or Insular, not of Grecian, birth. 
The line of succession is sometimes given thus : Thales, Anaximander, Anaxi- 
menes, Heraclitus of Ephesus. 

6 Diog. Laer. Procem. 



392 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



Early Greek ethics, and logic. This was the order in which they naturally arose ; 
philosophy. £ Qr ^ inquiring mind would first be drawn towards those phenomena 
of the universe which daily and powerfully address the senses. Thus 
Socrates says, " When I was young I had a marvellous desire of that 
knowledge which is called natural history." 1 Such pursuits were 
both safe and useful : 2 safe, because they offered no grounds of jea- 
lousy or suspicion to the civil ruler ; and useful, because he who dis- 
covered, observed, and registered those secondary causes, on which the 
operations of nature depend, could manifestly make his knowledge 
available for the purposes of navigation, and the culture of the earth. 3 
The sailor and the agriculturist were guided by those signs of the 
heavens which the philosophers had recorded; and since the latter 
were in early times legislators also, morals, so far as they were con- 
nected with politics, necessarily claimed their notice. Now it was in 
the latter capacity only that they were teachers of religion : they 
commonly pretended to trace their polity to a revelation from heaven ; 4 
and the ordinary description of a legislator is, " he arranged the form 
of government, beginning from the gods :" " in civil institutes," says 
one 5 of the earliest, 1 ' the first and most important article is the belief 
of the gods :" again, " the first law of the constitution should be for 
the support of what relates to the gods, the ministering spirits, 
(daifioveg), and our parents, and in general of whatsoever is good 
and venerable." Accordingly, those sages who betook themselves to 
Hypocrisy of legislation — as, for example, several did of the seven wise men of 
FatSi leg ' s " Greece 6 — found a religion transmitted by' tradition, established by 
usage, and therefore they enforced it, not as philosophers, but as legis- 
lators ; not as true, but as expedient : that is, they supported, both 
by their authority and example in one character, what they ridiculed 
and disbelieved in the other. 7 This will explain many of the incon- 
sistencies of Grecian literature : the memorials even of Socrates which 
are come down to us, contain some of the absurdities of polytheism, 
together with passages which indicate a purer faith. 8 He was taught 
by Archelaus, a pupil of Anaxagoras, and so far improved philosophy, 
Moral philo- as to attempt to make it bear more practically on the regulation of 
sophy. men's characters and lives. Now, whenever moral philosophy comes 
in contact with human interests and passions, in the daily intercourse 
of life, different systems will be invented, to justify what is agreeable 
and to evade what is difficult; the necessity of adjusting these dif- 
ferences gave rise to the science of logic; which was systematised, 

1 Ui^i Quffiut IffToyav (Phsedo, ch. xlv). 2 CEd. Tyr. 795. 

3 Diog. Laert. ii. 15 ; Ar. Pol. lib. i. ch. viii. 

4 Warburton's Divine Legation, ii. 2 ; Virg. Eel. iii. 40. 

5 Warhurton's Divine Legation, ii. 3. 6 Cic. de Or. iii. 34. 

7 When Pomponatius, or Pomponazzo, was accused of ridiculing Christianity, he 
answered that he wrote only as a philosopher, but as a man he was willing to sub- 
mit his judgment to the Church. Accordingly, it was proposed that he should be 
burnt as a philosopher, and acquitted as a man. — Life of Leo X., vol. iv., p. 101. 

8 Pined. 63. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



393 



traced to its principles, and enlarged, by Aristotle. Indeed, his com- Aristotle, 
prehensive mind embraced all the departments of ancient philosophy : 
succeeding ages have added little to the precision of his logic ; antiquity Logic, 
offers us nothing so good as his treatises on morals and politics ; and 
amidst these graver studies, he still found leisure for the prosecution 
of phvsical inquiry and criticism. Quinctilian says he doubts whether 
Aristotle's chief claim to celebrity rests on his practical knowledge, 
the fulness of his writings, the sweetness of his style, the sagacity of 
his discoveries, or the wide range of his works. 1 

Not equally extensive or successful, but equally safe and honourable, Thaiss. 
were the pursuits of Thales, who died in the 58th Olympiad. Miletus 
had the honour of his birth and the advantage of his residence : he 
seemed the gratitude and respect of his fellow-citizens by the wisdom 
with which he assisted in administering then government. But 
neither the duties nor the fame of public life, neither the ease nor the 
pleasures of retirement, could divert him from his favourite physical 
studies. He distinguished some of the constellations by name, Natural phi- 
observed the solstice and equinoxes, divided the year into four seasons, osop er ' 
and into 365 days, and predicted an eclipse of the sun (both the 
prophecy and its fulfilment are related by Herodotus 2 ). He also 
calculated the solar magnitude as compared with that of the moon. 
It is said that he travelled into Egypt and there ascertained the 
height of the pyramids by a very simple expedient — by noticing at 
what time the shadow cast by a body was exactly equal to its altitude. 
As the pursuit of knowledge was the occupation of Thales, its pos- 
session was his enjoyment in a good old age. The reputation of it 
seems to have been his greatest present happiness, and his brightest 
future expectation; for on imparting 3 some particular discovery, the 
only reward for which he stipulated from his pupil, was that when 
he in his turn made it known to others, the name of the original 
inventor should always accompany the communication. 

Morals had not as yet been digested into a system ; they were and moralist, 
taught chiefly by proverbial apophthegms, suited by their conciseness 
to dwell in the memory, and to be transmitted for popular use by the 
medium of oral tradition. If, however, all the sayings attributed to 
Thales by Diogenes Laertius were really his, they contain much that 
is practically excellent ; happiness he placed in a healthy body, an 
easy fortune, and a well-educated mind ; justice and good conduct ; 
in avoiding ourselves what we censure in others, in rejecting all 
improper modes of becoming rich, in being mindful of absent friends, 
in loving our neighbour, and in forbearing to upbraid the unfortunate. 
He said, space was the greatest, intellect the swiftest, hope the most 
universal, necessity the strongest, time the wisest, success the 

1 Or. Ins. s. 1. 

* Lib. i. 7-4. Probably it happened on the 10th of September, B. c. 610. See 
art. Thales. 

8 Diog. Laert. vol. ii. 14. 



394 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



Theology of 
Anaxagoras, 



and of the 
dramas of 
Euripides. 



sweetest, virtue the most useful, vice the most mischievous, to know 
oneself the hardest, to give advice the easiest, the world the most 
beautiful. It would be out of place here to enlarge on the doctrines 
of the early physical philosophers. Let it suffice to say, that Thales 
thought water the beginning (apx>)) of all things ; Anaximenes, air ; 
Diogenes held that air was intelligent, and had the same relation to 
the universe that the soul had to the body. Anaximander thought 
the Infinite (to aireipov) was the Primal Existence. 1 

It was Anaxagoras who so far improved the tenets of the Ionic 
school, as to establish two separate and opposite existences — mind 
and matter. The foundation of his philosophy was — of nothing, 
nothing can be made. In the beginning, then, there existed matter 
in a state of chaos, without motion ; but there was another principle 
from all eternity, self-acting, all-comprising, incorporeal, possessed of 
inherent motion, and communicating it to matter. This mind — the 
mind of God (vovq deovf — arranged all things, and out of chaos 
generated the visible universe. The credit, then, of having first 
separated the idea of God from materiality belongs to Anaxagoras. 3 
His physical science also enabled him to make inroads on the absur- 
dities of polytheism; he taught that the celestial bodies were not 
deities : he also undermined the authority of divination and omens, 
by explain ing the natural causes of those phenomena by which sooth- 
sayers pretended 4 to prognosticate. A residence of thirty years at 
Athens, during which he delivered professional instructions, and above 
all, the characters of two of his most distinguished hearers, were likely 
to give his philosophy great influence upon the age in which he lived. 
For many of the highest classes were desirous of imitating the 
ambitious and successful career of Pericles, though they had neither 
his talents nor his integrity; and Pericles was the pupil of Anax- 
agoras. 5 

Of the dramatic writers, Euripides was calculated to produce a 
greater effect on the public mind than any of the contemporary trage- 
dians ; and Euripides was the pupil of Anaxagoras. " His constant 
endeavour is merely to please, without caring by what means," 6 
and he possesses genius and talent to ensure success. His style 
and subjects are less lofty, and his theology far more irreverend, 
than those of iEschylus : over Sophocles he had this advantage — he 
drew men as they were ; Sophocles as they ought to be. Aristotle 
calls him TpaynaordroQ. most tragic; an epithet which, even if it 
conveys, as Schlegel says, " important censure," certainly implies great 
power. This power he used " to insinuate his own libertine opinions 



1 These tenets, their meaning and their importance, as the foundation and deve- 
lopment of Greek philosophy, are explained in a small volume of G. H. Lewes, 
published by Knight, 1845. 

2 Plutarch de Plac. Phil. i. 7. 

3 Brucker, Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 11 ; Phsedo, ch. xlvi. 

4 Plut. in Peric. 5 Fast. Hell. B. c. 450. 6 Schlegel. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 395 

and scepticism amidst those fabulous marvels connected with Euripides, 
religion which were the subjects of his plays." 1 His popularity as 
a dramatical author is evident from this fact, that by the recitation of 
his verses, those who were taken prisoners in the disastrous expe- 
dition of Nicias against Sicily, mitigated the rigours of slavery : so 
familiar was he to the memory of the Athenian commonalty, by his 
glowing descriptions of Grecian climate and scenery, by the tenderness 
and force of his pathetic appeals to the feelings, by the abundance 
and variety of his moral sentiments, and by his passionate delineations 
of the effects of love. He was too studious and too solitary for 
politics ; he was too timid for philosophy ; but, under the shelter of 
his dramatic characters, he could utter the sentiments of his master, 
without incurring the same responsibility or the same punishment. 
As a poet whose productions were consecrated to a religious cere- 
mony, he was bound occasionally to speak respectfully of the gods ; 
and so he does, e. g., Heracl. 901, and especially in the Bacchse; but, Hissenti- 
as a philosophical inquirer, his sentiments were opposed to the received S e t h? p h op! 
system of popular mythology, and he attacks it accordingly. 2 He ^J^ y " 
ridicules 3 the folly of allowing temples to be an asylum for guilt : he eism ' 
condemns, by name, Apollo, Poseidon, 4 and Zeus, as encouraging 
immorality among mankind. Clytemnestra 5 thus addresses Achilles : 
" If there are gods, you, at all events, since you are a just man, will 
meet with prosperity ; and if not, why trouble one's self at all ?" It 
is obvious, that one such doubt would outweigh many contrary 
declarations. In the Alcestis, Heracles, " the noble son of Zeus 
most high," v. 1139, must have been intended to be ridiculous ; 
coming an unexpected guest to the house of Admetus, carousing, 
bawling (apovc' vXcucrtiv), quarrelling, prosing ; then penitent, v. 829, 
on learning the family loss ; anxious to repair it, and therefore pro- 
posing to lie in wait for Death, and squeeze him tightly round the 
ribs, till he released his prey — Alcestis. It was likely the sire would 
share the ridicule the son excited ; so would the whole system of 
which sire and son were a part. Indeed, numerous passages in other 
plays would encourage the philosophy which they appear to oppose, 
and undermine that system of polytheism which they seem to embody 
and support ; because they contain so much which is not only false, 
but repugnant to common sense. Thus the truth they might contain — 
for instance, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, or of the self- 
existence of the Deity, or of future 6 retribution — would be neutralized 
by its combination with so much folly, while their falsehood would 
take effect, because it was perspicuous and intelligible. iEschylus, 
for instance, was a Pythagorean, and therefore taught, in a certain 
sense, the immortality of the soul •/ but his master's proof of this 

1 Schlegel. Professor Keble takes a more favourable view of Euripides, Prsel. 29. 

2 Hercules Furens, 1314. Hecuba, 492. 3 Ion, 1312. 

4 Ion, 446. 5 Iph. in Aul. 1034. 6 Alcestis, 1005. 

7 The funeral pile subdues not the spirit of the dead (^avj^a Savovroi), but it 
shows its temper afterwards. — Chseph. 321. 



396 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



doctrine was absurd and ridiculous. " He referred himself to former 
generations, saying that first he was Euphorbus, secondly iEthalides, 
thirdly Hermotimus, and fourthly Pyrrhus, but now Pythagoras ; by 
which (things) he proved (di mv Helkwev) Cjq adavaTog f] 
that the soul is immortal (Porphyr. de vita Pyth). If supplications 
are addressed to a monster slumbering at the entrance to the regions of 
futurity, in the very same passage which suggests the resemblance 
between eternal sleep and death, we may conjecture which idea would 
be most deep and durable. 1 The same Zeus of Euripides, who is at 
one time invoked as a moral governor, is rebuked at another as an 
example too bad for man to imitate, 2 or confounded with the operation 
of physical necessity 3 or man's intellect. 
Effects on The effect of such sentiments recited before assembled multitudes 
pS^of the must ^ ave ^ een § reat > k ut whether it was good, will admit a question. 
Euripides. To exhibit the falsehood and folly of polytheism was, doubtless, one 
step towards religious truth ; and perhaps there were a few individuals 
whose minds ascended by these means to the knowledge of the unity 
of God. 4 But no one was able to impose this belief on his followers 
as a sect. Many who could follow their teachers so far as to be con- 
vinced of the absurdity of the popular superstitions, were yet unable to 
grasp or to retain the notion of one Supreme Being. So that the 
general effect of this improved state of philosophy was only to establish, 
in place of polytheism, an idea of virtue without moral obligation, of 
a Deity without a providence, and either annihilation after death, or a 
future state of existence without rewards or punishments. Aristotle 
says as much, Ethic, lib. iii. 6 : " Death is the most formidable (of 
all things), for it is the end ; and to the dead nothing seems to remain, 
either good or evil." Whether he expresses here his own, or the 
Popular popular opinion, the passage bears on the present subject. Socrates, 
a?ou°theim- * n Phaedo of Plato, chap. 29, says distinctly, that the greater part 
mortality of of mankind (ot ttoWoI avdpojTroi) held that the soul, when released 
from the body, straightway was scattered to the winds, and it perished 
(piaTr£<f)var)TaL /ecu a.7r6\(o\ev). It is right to add that this great man, 
probably the most enlightened among the heathen, states this doctrine 

1 (Ed. Col. Erfurdt, 1568, ». r. X. 

2 Ion. 449. 

3 Ziug, sit avoiyxw <pv<riea$, strs vovs figoTav, 
Tlgo<rnv\tt.(ii,nv <ru Troades, 887. 

The following lines are a fragment of Euripides preserved in Stobseus, ch. i. : — 

ogas tov v^ov t'ovV cLth^ov OllfigOl 
xxt ynv vrigth, '^ovff vygous iv ayscoiXats 
tovtov vofjuQi Zyjvei tovV 'hyou feov. 

You see this boundless firmament on high, 
Embracing earth with circumambient arms, 
Be this thy Jupiter — think this thy god. 

4 An expression to h7ov, which might seem to imply the Unity, stands in the 
same passage (a very beautiful one) with words which declare Plurality, e. g. 
uvtovs and kous. See Xenoph. Mem. i. 4, ad fin. 



the soul. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



397 



only to condemn it. His latest opinions are in substance these : 
"Since I have had no suggestion from my internal monitor (fj 
slioOvia fjiol fjiavTiKri), moving me to attempt to avoid a sentence of 
capital condemnation, there is great hope that death is a good : one of 
two things it must be — either the annihilation of all perception 
(aiffdrjvig), or, as is commonly said, a certain change and transmi- 
gration of the soul. In the first case, death will be a wonderful good ; 
and so it will if our departure hence unites us to the deceased of past 
ages. . . . The approaching hour brings death to me, to you continu- 
ance of life ; and which of these two is the better none knows, 
except the Deity." 1 Even among the instructors themselves, social mo- 
truth, as such, was not the object of their search, and virtue, as ^jjj^j k 
such, was only the subject of their declamations. 2 If they released the time of 
men from the fears of the fabled Tartarus — if they destroyed the hope p" a s ^" s 
of the fabled Elysium — for 
these they had no substitute 
which could operate practically 
in the regulation of life or the 
formation of character. And this 
will account for the known fact, 
that public morals became gra- 
dually worse. Aristophanes, 3 
whose writings are the mirror 
of his time, laments it; Iso- 
crates 4 confirms it at a later 
period, marked, as he says, by 
the absence of those public 
and private virtues which 
adorned the early ages of the 
republic. Religious festivals 
were not then converted into 
disorderly seasons of ostenta- 
tion, extravagance, dishonesty, and innovation ; public men were 
neither covetous nor tax-eaters ; the rich and the poor were bound j^"/^ 
together by the feeling of mutual benevolence, and the exercise of Urates, 
mutual assistance; and, in money transactions, by the security of 
general confidence. Education was begun early, and directed well. 
The lower orders were taught to be contented and industrious ; the 
rich were trained to the amusement of the chase, the exercises of the 
gymnasium, and the study of philosophy. Young men did not pass 
their time in gaming-houses and taverns, among female singers and 
buffoons, or in idle parties of pleasure. The orator here gives us, by 
implication, a sketch of his own times, when even the pursuits of 
literature were but another form of gay, polite diversion. The gram- 

» Plat. Apol. 32, 33. 

2 Ar. Ethics, ii. 4 : It -roXXm Tavra p,h, x. r. x. Conf. Ezekiel, xxxiii. 32. 

3 Nubes. 4 Orat. Arecp. 




398 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



marian 1 and the musician, who had cultivated little beside the ima- 
gination, handed over their pupils to the philosopher : the latter 
bewildered their judgment by discussions about the Deity, his attri- 
butes — the formation of the world — the soul of man, its origin, and 
its future destination — the universe — matter — intelligence — knowledge 
— opinion — sensation, and motion. Philosophy on these subjects 
became fashionable ; the restlessness of Athenian intellect originated 
a thousand opposite opinions, and amidst this diversity of theories, 
practical virtue was forgotten. 

One thing was yet wanting 2 — the perversion of the moral sense, 
together with the power of confounding the simple-minded rectitude 
of an opponent by the subtleties of dexterous argumentation. This 
last polish of refinement was produced by a race, who, under the title 
of Sophists, have been by many writers handed down to the ridicule 
The Sophists, and detestation of posterity. 3 Not, however, that the term had 
always a bad sense, or that this mischievous corruption was at first 
either then avowed or their real object. But they professed to teach 
the art of public speaking on any side of any question, and such a 
faculty must be liable to abuse. The age of Pericles was one in 
which the character of the statesman, 4 as such, had just begun to 
acquire an ascendancy and reputation above that of the military com- 
mander. Now Pericles was the first statesman in the first nation in 
Greece ; he was the most eloquent speaker of his day, and he was 
known to have studied philosophy : the Athenian youth, then, who 
had quitted then early teachers, thought that, if they studied phi- 
losophy, they too should become eloquent, and rise to political power. 
It is in literature as it is in other commodities — demand creates 
supply. Public speaking was at that time an essential requisite for 
public life ; it was the only mode by which a political aspirant could 
make known to the people his sense of their grievances or their great- 

1 The following dialogue is the substance of an epigram in the Greek Anthology, 
No. 671, p. 308, Edwards' ed. :— 

Physician. What do you teach my son? 

Grammarian. We have read in the Iliad Homer's account of souls being sent 
prematurely to the grave. 

Physician. Then my son need not go to you any longer — I can teach him that 
at home. 

o Ta7; •xa.g ipo) rxura, (Atzhlv Ivyotrxi. 

2 Those who desire to see specimens of modem sophistry in its worst garb will 
find some choice ones in the notes to the " Lettres Provinciales," and in the eighth 
Letter. In the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Sophists had taught in very 
many (plurimis) cities of Greece. — Cramer, p. 45. 

3 Mr. Grote has undertaken their defence : it will be found elaborately conducted 
in the sixty-seventh chapter of his History of Greece. The Sophists with whom 
Plato brings Socrates into controversy are, Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leon- 
tium, Polus of Agrigentum, Hippias of Elis, Prodicus of Cos, Thrasymachus of 
Chalcedon, Euthydamus and Dionysidorus of Chios ; to these Xenophon adds Anti- 
phon of Athens. Stallbaum, Eitter, Brandis, and generally the recent German 
commentators on Platonic philosophy, condemn the Sophists. — Grote, ch. lxvii. 

4 Heeren on Greece. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



399 



ness, together with his designs for redressing one and increasing the 
other. Hence, the art of influencing, by persuasion, such a miscel- 
laneous, intelligent, half-educated, capricious audience, was eagerly 
coveted by one party, and boldly professed by another ; and in order 
to make instruction more palatable, it was pretended that no deficiency 
of talent would interfere with eventual success. 

Of these professors, Protagoras 1 was the earliest, and Gorgias the Protagoras, 
most distinguished. The former was persuaded by Democritus to 
quit manual labour for philosophy, and accordingly repaired to Athens. 
There he taught that nothing could be known with certainty, since all 
information came by the senses, and these were liable to deception ; 
that no opinions could be either false 2 or contradictory ; that about the 
existence of the gods, and their nature, he could assert nothing ; that 
actions were good or bad, not by any essential qualities, but relatively 
to the agent ; or, in other words, what a man thought good, relatively 
to him, was good, and vice versa ; therefore honour, virtue, justice, 
and the like, were only creatures of opinion. Upon such principles as 
these, Protagoras established his art of confounding 3 right and wrong : 
by such exercises of 

Wit and gay rhetoric 

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence, 
Obtruding false rules prankt in reason's garb, 4 

he acquired fame and wealth. He received from his pupils one 
hundred minse for their complete education. 5 It unfortunately hap- 
pened that the taste of the times discouraged, and even punished, his 
researches 6 in natural history, which might have been innocent and 
useful (fixing on such students generally the derisive title fxerewpo- 
XeV^ai), while it listened to his metaphysics, 7 which were destructive 
of the first principles of morality. 

To these, or similar principles of philosophy, Gorgias added a far Gorgias. 
greater proficiency in rhetoric. He was the first 8 professor of extem- 
pore eloquence, offering to declaim in a mixed assembly on any subject 
which any of the audience might choose. Perceiving that the influence 
which versification exercised arose in a great measure from its struc- 
ture, 9 he united the artificial diction of a poet to the subtle casuistry 

1 A treatise of Protagoras was the first book that was publicly burnt because it 
expressed doubts about the existence of the gods. — Diog. Laert. 

Grote gives the following passage of Protagoras, partly from Diogenes Laertius, 
partly from Sextus Empiricus, as he (Grote) thinks the words would be most likely 
to stand (p. 499) : <rs(n fth fauv ovx l^u hvruv ovrs 'it \urit outf ovrom nv't; sitr'i vroXXix, 
yap ret xsoXvovtx uYivcci n rt ci^nXor'/ii xa) (Zool%v; uv o (Z!o; tov av^coTou. " As to 
the gods, I have it not in my power to say whether they exist, nor what kind of 
beings they are : for the hindrances of our knowledge are numerous, the obscurity 
of the subject, and the shortness of the life of man." 

2 Isoc. Hel. Laud. : kio'i nvi$ ot ufiya. (p^ovov<riv. x. r. X. Ch. i. 

3 Cic. Brutus, 15. 4 Comus. 5 Boeckh, vol. i. 163. 

• Plut. in Nic. 7 Plat. Men. 8 De Finibus, lib. ii. 1. 

» Arist. Rhet. iii. 1. 



400 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



Gorgias. of a sophist. From Leontium, his native place, he came to Athens, 
in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian war, on an embassy to invite 
assistance against Syracuse. There he struck 1 his hearers forcibly by 
the dexterity of his arguments, the novelty of 




his style, the abundance of his figurative 
language, and nicely-balanced periods. For 
the people were always alive to the charm of 
eloquence, and had not yet learnt that it was 
bad taste to confound poetical with oratorical 
ornament. Accordingly, his success was 
great : from his scholars he received an hun- 
dred minse for his instructions ; Greece re- 
warded him with the unprecedented 2 honour 
of a golden statue at Delphi; and Plato 
found a charm in his writings, which even 
that marvellous master of language did not 



disdain to imitate. 3 He too, the sweetness 
of whose elocution was typified on his sepulchre by the expressive 
emblem of a Siren, was a pupil of Gorgias ; and not only a pupil, but 
so far a copyist as to injure his own reputation. 4 Cicero is eloquent 
in commendation of the sophist's talents, but silent, or nearly so, 
respecting their misapplication. The extreme felicity of his own 
style, which he may be said to have invented, together with his prac- 
tised habits of disputation, made him sensible of the one, and he had 
too much tact to notice the other, when his special purpose was to 
recommend the study of Grecian literature. But professors of the 
same art received sterner treatment from the more austere disposition 
of Cato. 5 Carneades the academic, Diogenes the stoic, and Critolaus 
the peripatetic, came from Athens on an embassy. Each was emi- 
nent in a different style : the Eoman youth were eager to see and hear 
men so distinguished for wisdom and eloquence. Cato, however, in 
his place in the Senate, advised " that all the philosophers should be 
dismissed from the city on some honourable pretext; that these 
adepts in the arts of persuasion might return to their own effeminate 
Greeks (Graeculos suos), and leave the Roman youth, unsophisticated 
by any subtleties of argument, to obey the laws and the magistrates, 
Pretensions as tne i r f atners na ^ done before them." These, indeed, were later 
of the descendants of the family of sophists, but this historical fact illustrates 
sopbtsts. k th the extent, and the nature of their notoriety. Their elder 
brethren were a race equally mischievous. Travelling about Greece, 
they were arrogant in their professions of universal knowledge, impu- 
dent in their plagiarism, 6 avaricious in their exactions, 7 paradoxical 
and absurd in their tenets, fluent in their style, ensnaring in their 

i Diod. Sic. 2 De Orat. iii. 32. 

3 Dion. Hal. Ep. ad Cn. Pomp. 4 Philost, vit. Isoc. 

5 Livy, xlvii. 25. 6 Isoc. Panath. 

7 Iboc. Hel. Laud, and Plat. Hippias, Major. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



401 



questions, ridiculous in their promises, selling, 1 at the price of four 2 or 
five minae, infallible receipts for virtue and happiness, subtle in their 
casuistry, and depraved 3 in their morals. The details of then various 
artifices, and the masterly confutation of them by Socrates, may be 
sought in the dialogues of Plato. 4 

Such instructors, and their pupils, were fair marks for the satirical The sophists 
shafts of Aristophanes : his talents, as a wit and a poet, made him Aristo-* by 
popular ; his boldness spared neither people nor rulers ; as a drama- phangs. 
tist, he had his audience before him collectively ; and in the theatre, 
if anywhere — from him, if from any one — Athenians would listen to 
good sense and political wisdom, disguised in jest and raillery. His 
comedy, entitled the Clouds, is directed against these pseudo-phi- 
losophers. That the portrait is strictly accurate, it would be rash to 
assert and unreasonable to expect; but even a caricature, if it hopes 
to be effective, must preserve some likeness ; and though Aris- 
tophanes may have partially enlarged or distorted the features, he was 
too clever an artist to miss the general resemblance. There is, indeed, 
no excuse for his making Socrates the representative of the sophists — 
Socrates, who was of all men their most formidable, persevering, and 
successful opponent — Socrates, whose logical head, and skill in ex- 
posing conceit and ignorance by cross-questioning — Socrates, whose 
good sense, ready wit, extraordinary powers of illustration, and keen 
sense of the ridiculous, enabled him to encounter and defeat them with 
eir own weapons. 5 But there can be little doubt that the Unjust 
Reason {clSikog Xoyoe) of the Clouds had his counterpart among this 
unprincipled class. A verbal illustration, though it may not prove the 
point, will aid the general argument ; their character changed the very 
meaning of their title : 6 the term (Tocpiarr^g 7 marked, in its early accepta- Early and 
tion, all that was respectable and honest in the pursuit of truth and Sn^oftne" 
knowledge ; it became afterwards 8 a byword for all that was disin- word 

<ro<|)i<rTT)9. 

1 Boeckh, in his Public (Economy of Athens, has collected some curious informa- 
tion respecting the remuneration of the professors of literature. Protagoras, the 
first who taught for money, received from his pupils 100 minae for their complete 
education. Gcrgias required the same sum. Hippias, while still a young man, 
together with Protagoras, earned in Sicily, in a very short space of time, 150 minae ; 
of which more than twenty were from one small town, and not, as it appears, by 
any long course of education. By degrees, however, the number of teachers 
brought about a reduction of the price. Isocrates taught the whole art of rhetoric 
for ten minae. Prodicus received from each pupil, for private lectures, from one 
to fifty drachmas. (Vol. i. p. 163.) Hippomachus received one mina from each 
pupil on his entrance ; he might then attend lectures as long as he pleased. (St. 
John, vol. i. p. 179.) 

2 Isoc. Cont. Soph. 8 Plato, Euthyd. and Men. 

4 See also Mitchell's Aristoph. 5 Cic. Brutus, 15. 6 Ar. Rhet, i. 4. 

7 Pindar, Isth. v. 36. iEschylus, in Athenaeus, xiv. 8, applies the word to 
lyrists : sir ovv troQirriis xctXu vrocgtz'z'a.tuv %eXt/v. 

8 If, in the middle of the Peloponnesian war, any Athenian had been asked who 
were the principal sophists in his city, he would have named Socrates among the 
first ; for Socrates was at once eminent as an intellectual teacher, and personally 
unpopular, not because he received pay, but on other grounds which will be here- 

[H.G.] 2 D 



402 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



genuous and false : the orators of the succeeding age were eager to 
fix it on their opponents, as intimating the misapplication 1 of talent in 
devising fallacies ; and even in our own time the name of sophistry is 
connected with the same associations. There is a letter, too, in 
Alciphron which sheds light on this subject ; and though the date of 
that collection may not be ascertained, still it is probable they are, if 
not a transcript, at least an imitation of a state of things not unlike the 
times of Aristophanes. 2 A courtesan there repels indignantly the 
imputation of a sophist, that her sisterhood corrupt the Athenian 
youth. She frankly admits, that the object of both the sophists and 
the courtesans was the same, namely, money ; but the young men 
might as well be with the latter as the former ; nay, rather better, for 
their principles did not inculcate the disbelief of the existence of the 
gods ; and their practice was preferable to that universal degradation 
of the female sex recommended by some of their traducers. Of these 
last, Critias was the pupil, Aspasia was the instructress of Pericles ; 
and of these two, which was the better citizen ? The state of things 
must have been bad indeed, when such parties as these could gravely 
argue which was the most mischievous. The letter itself, indeed, may 
be either genuine or fictitious ; but, even in the latter case, the circum- 
stances would not have been invented had they contained any gross 
improbability. Besides, when the graver voice of history is heard on 
the manners of the times collectively, it is loud and decisive in their 
condemnation. In the Peloponnesian war, the plague at Athens, and 
various forms of insurrection all over Greece, brought to light men's 
National real character. Thucydides, speaking of the first, says, " And the 
character at great licentiousness which also in other kinds was used in the city, 

Athens 

brought out began at first from this disease. For that which a man before would 
plague dissemble, and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he 
durst now do freely, seeing before his eyes such quick revolution of the 
rich dying, and men worth nothing inheriting their estates ; inasmuch 
as they justified a speedy fruition of their goods, even for their plea- 
sure, as men that thought they held their fives but by the day. As 
for pains, no man was forward in any action of honour to take any, 
because they thought it uncertain whether they should die or not 
before they achieved it. But what any man knew to be delightful, 
and to be profitable to pleasure, that was made both profitable and 
honourable. Neither the fear of the gods, nor the laws of men, awed 
any man. Not the former, because they concluded it was alike to 



after noticed ; and this was the precise combination of qualities which the general 
public naturally expressed by a sophist. Moreover, Plato not only stole the name 
out of general circulation in order to fasten it specially upon his opponents, the 
paid teachers, but also connected with it express discreditable attributes. Aristotle, 
following the example of his master, gave to the word sophist a definition sub- 
stantially the same as that which it bears in modern languages. Rhet. i. 1 ; Grote, 
ch. lxvii. 

1 Dem. pro Cor. 2 Lib. i Ep. 34. 



EDUCATION OF THE ATHENIANS. 



403 



worship or not worship, from seeing that alike they all perished ; nor 
the latter, because no man expected his life would last till he received 
punishment of his crimes by judgment." 1 In the same historian, the 
details connected with the Corcyrian 2 sedition exemplify most forcibly 
and most widely the dissolution of all the ties of political, social, 
domestic, and personal virtue. Xenophon, 3 at a later period, declared Testimony of 
of the Athenians that they could distinguish among the citizens who Xen °P hon » 
were excellent and who were base ; that with this knowledge they 
love those who contribute to their convenience and profit, base as they 
may be, and the others they hate : for they think that virtue has a 
natural tendency to promote, not their benefit, but their detriment. 
The testimony of Isocrates is to the same effect ? 4 Each of the periods and isocrates. 
referred to in these historical passages was later than the time when 
the sophists began to teach ; and to the seeds of then instruction may, 
in some measure, be referred that moral produce which this field of 
inquiry exhibits. 

1 Hobbes. 2 Lib. iii. 82 : x.a) nav as l/a-sl* to 'EkXnvtxov Ixivnfa. 

3 Eesp. Ath. There is, however, among scholars a doubt about the genuineness 
of this treatise. 

4 De Pace. That in the time of Demosthenes the Athenians were a degenerate 
race ; that levity and indolence had taken the place of patriotism and honourable 
ambition is matter of history. — Kennedy's Preface to his translation of De- 
mosthenes. 




SECTION IV. 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 

Spartan It was the great mistake of the politics of antiquity, that they 
education. sacr ified to the imaginary happiness of the state so many domestic 
institutions, duties, and affections. In no city was this error so 
strongly exemplified as in Lacedaemon. 1 Its original history will 
account for some of its peculiarities. Eighty years after the Trojan 
war, the descendants of Heracles, assisted by the inhabitants of Doris, 
regained possession of Laconia. Thus a regal family and a soldier nation 
occupied as their own the lands they conquered, the original inha- 
bitants (Trepioucoi) having the option either of emigrating, or of 
holding as tenants, and as an inferior caste, the property which was by 
right their own. The posterity of the Dorian invaders were the 
Spartans ; their position was like that of the Normans, after their 
settlement in England, or of the continental nobles of the middle ages : 
they were a garrison in the midst of a conquered people ; a garrison, 
however, defensive, rather than aggressive. From his cradle to his 
Infanticide tomb, a Spartan was public property. Scarcely had he entered into 
permitted. jjf ej w h en a public council deliberated whether that life should be 
continued : they whose feelings were most interested in the question, 
had no voice in its decision. Infirmity of constitution, or personal 
defects, warranted a sentence of death. Those infants whom the 
service of the state did not require, private affection might not spare, 
and they were cast as useless animals into a cavern on Mount Taygetus. 
The healthy and the strong were cradled in a shield, 1 and had warlike 
instruments perpetually before their eyes; they were habituated to 
coarse and scanty food, to endure darkness without fear, and contra- 
diction without complaint. 2 At the age of seven, domestic education 

1 See Theocritus, Idyll, xxiv. 3. 2 Plut. in Lyc. 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



405 



ended, and that no slave assisted in it, was one of the Spartan 1 pecu- Domestic 
liarities. Those whom the state preserved, she now undertook to |„5£* 1011 
discipline. Being divided into classes, over each of which a youth childhood, 
presided, they were collectively under the control of a public governor. 
In his occasional absence, any of the elder citizens might execute his 
office. Shoes 2 were thought needless : at the age of twelve, of the 
two garments hitherto allowed, one was retrenched ; and since the 
other was very rarely changed, it appears cleanliness and decency were 
not much consulted. The luxury of oil, and the bath, were only 
allowed on particular days ; they slept in companies, on beds cf 
rushes : they also dined in companies, under public inspection : those 
whose appetite outran the frugal provision of the public table, might 
steal to supply the deficiency. 3 Detection was followed by punish- 
ment; but the culprit suffered, not for his dishonesty, but for Ins 
unskilfulness ; not for having plundered, but for being found out. At 
these meals in the public halls, lectures of morality were delivered, the 
deeds of great men were recounted, and that sort of repartee en- 
couraged which has survived to our own day, under the title of 
Laconic. Ancient witticisms, or pithy sayings, are, in general, 
scarcely tolerable in a modern dress ; and the characteristic brevity of 
these makes them particularly untranslatable. f H rav f/ vki rav A was 
the address of a Spartan mother, as she gave a shield to her son, who 
was arming for battle : no version can adequately render its simplicity, 
patriotism, and conciseness. 

At the age of twelve, each distinguished youth became the favourite Education in 
companion of some one of the elder members of the community. earl * y° uth « 
This connection was founded on personal affection, and conducted, 
according to the best testimony, 5 with all the purity and warmth of 
paternal or brotherly love. The elder was to be the guide, patron, and 
model to his younger friend, to share his honour or his disgrace ; and 
if several had chosen the same youth as the object of their regard, no 
jealousy prevented the union of their efforts to render him an accom- 
plished citizen. Rivalry in excellence was encouraged by another 
expedient. The magistrates nominated three individuals, who selected 
three hundred as a distinct class. These were, of course, watched 
with a jealous eye by the remainder : any deficiency in courage, (and 
the parties usually fought when they met, 6 ) or impropriety of conduct 
was observed, reported, and punished ; and virtue was thus kept alert 
and active, by the caution of those who held the post of honour, and 
the hopes of those who desired it. 

As to literature, 7 they were brought up to despise it as a foreign The Spartans 
luxury, useless, if not mischievous : many of them could neither write foi^'of 
nor read ; 8 but they listened with pleasure to the warlike verses of tial poetry. 

1 Xenoph. 2 Xenoph. Lac. Res. 3 Xenoph. Anab. iv. 6. 

4 /. e. " Either bring this home, or be brought home upon it." This motto was 
inscribed on one of the national flags in the Greek revolution of 1827. 

9 Pint, and Xenoph. 6 Xenoph. 1 Ar. Rhet. ii. 23. 

8 Meursius, Mis. Lac. : ouTt yoippara. ftuvticHvavtriv, Isoc. Panath. 83. 



406 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



Tyrtaeus 1 and Homer. Dramatic and rhetorical compositions they had 
none : martial 2 music they cultivated and admired ; but whatever seeds 
of general taste, talent, or accomplishments might exist in any indi- 
vidual mind, their institutions speedily destroyed. An orator was 
banished for making profession of the art of eloquence, and when 
Timotheus 3 played too well on the lyre, the Ephori ordered four 
strings to be cut from his instrument. In a word, as the city of 




Lycurgus was a camp, his people were always on parade : music was 
an art by which warlike feelings were cherished, and they loved it as 
such : speech was but a medium of transacting business ; and what 
they said was close, 4 pertinent, and sensible. To the Samians, who 
besought assistance in a long harangue, they replied, they did not 
understand the end of the speech, and had forgotten the beginning : 
upon which, the ambassadors, adapting their mode of entreaty to the 
character of the nation, exhibited an empty bag. The Lacedaemonians 
understood this appeal, and promised the necessary supply. 5 

As the aristocratic part of the nation, the Dorians, thus disregarded 
the accomplishments of literature and art, they held in still greater 
contempt the occupation of manual labour. Idleness suited the 
dignity of their liberty, except when it was exchanged for dancing, 
Their sports the exercises of the gymnasium, or the chase. They wrestled, ran, 
ferocious. an( j threw the javelin : they had also a game like football, 6 and their 
sportive combats had the ferocity of warfare without its excuse. 
Feet, 7 fists, nails, and teeth, were all brought into play most effec- 
tively ; the state permitted and superintended these encounters, and 
thus trained her citizens by an absurd and cruel system, fit only for 
uncivilized savages. For such pastimes as these, she left agriculture 
and the mechanical arts in the hands of the Helots ; they hired from 
the proprietor that land which each head of a family possessed, and 

1 Athenseus, xiv. ch. viii. 2 Ar. Pol. 5. 3 Plut. Agis. 

4 The well-known " Veni, vidi, vici," of Caesar is not so good in its way as 
Lysander's letter, " Athens is taken." 

5 Herod, iii. 46, and conf. vii. 228. c Lucian, de Gymn. 
7 Paus. iii. 14 ; Cic. Tusc. Quaest. v. 27. 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



407 



thus profited by the folly of the state, in marking such pursuits as a Spartan 
degradation. These original estates were private property, and passed, ^^ty! 
without increase or diminution, 1 to the eldest son. But, in some 
respects, there was a community of goods at Sparta ; he, 2 for instance, 
who wished to hunt, or to travel, took Ins neighbour's dogs or equipage 
without hesitation : 3 wives occasionally were not excepted under this 
plan of mutual accommodation. To improve the breed of citizens 
was the legislator's great aim : 4 he recommended his system most per- 
tinently by illustrations drawn from dogs and horses ; and his people 
admitted its efficacy, apparently without thinking that they paid too 
high a price for it. 

It was, indeed, especially in his conduct in respect of the female Condition of 
sex, that Lycurgus snowed his ignorance of the true source of human women - 
happiness. 5 Political liberty he secured ; but, in its attainment, he 
lost almost all that could make it valuable ; for he violated all the 
sanctities of domestic life, and many of the decencies of natural pro- 
priety. The gymnastics of his young females, their dancing, running, 
wrestling, leaping, throwing the javelin and the quoit, were performed 
in public. Even their ordinary dress 6 was notorious, and proverbial 
for its indecorous exhibition of the person. 7 It may be doubted, 8 
whether this state of things was a part of the legislator's deliberate 
design, or whether it arose from his systematic neglect ; but, in either 
case, the effects were equally immoral. 9 

The time of marriage for all the citizens was appointed by law, but Marriage, 
not actually enforced. In early ages, the marriageable girls 10 were col- 
lected in a room perfectly dark ; the young men were admitted, and 
she whom each one caught became his wife. This custom, however, 
afterwards fell into disuse. But as late as the days of Lysander, the 
law punished those who did not marry at all ; or who remained 
widowers ; or who married too late ; or who married ill. Thus, 

1 A law, permitting their alienation, was passed by the influence of Epitadeus. 
Its consequences were the accumulation of landed property in the hands of a few, 
general poverty and discontent, the decay of public spirit, and a restless desire of 
change. — Plut. Agis. 

2 Arist. Pol. 3 Xenoph. Res. Lac. 4 Plut. in Lyc. 

5 otni; ya.(> to, x,a,<ra, yvvxma: (pZiuXa. uittio Aaat^xifioviois, aytbov Kara, to vfturv 
oZk (vbcfAf/.o'Jouirt. — Ar. Rhet. i. 5. 

6 It was a chiton, or frock, without sleeves, and often did not reach the knees ; 
one side was quite open, and it was fastened on the shoulders by clasps. This is 
perhaps what Plutarch calls yvfivutn? tuv vra^Qivuv : but at times, in public, the 
Spartan females wore no garment. — Bekker. 

7 <paivof*.yoih\;. — Plut. in Num. 

8 Conf. Plut. in Lyc. and Ar. Pol. lib. ii. 

• The undisciplined manners of the Spartan women are inconsistent with every 
wise plan of legislation, and totally adverse to the principal aim of Lycurgus, who, 
exacting the most rigid temperance in his men, with a view to harden them to forti- 
tude, has granted every indulgence to his women, and thereby corrupted them with 
licentiousness. — Arist. Pol. lib. ii ; Gillies, vol. ii. p. 122. 

,0 Plut. in Lyc. 



408 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



Celibacy 
discouraged 
at Sparta. 



Marriage 
customs. 



granted to 
the married ; 
freedom to 
the 

unmarried. 



though it was not absolutely compulsory, yet it consigned bachelors to 
public disgrace ; it obliged them to march, in an ignominious pro- 
cession, singing songs to their own discredit ; and once a-year they 
were personally chastised. 1 On a certain festival, the women might 
beat them with the hand, or with a stick. Whether the thickness of 
the latter was regulated by law, as it is said to be in modern times, 
with reference to its application in conjugal discipline, is uncertain. 
Now, a Spartan lady, in one of the plays of Aristophanes, 8 is thus 
complimented by her friend Lysistrate : " My beloved Lampito, how 
handsome you are ; your complexion is so fine, and your person so full 
and healthy ; why, you could strangle a bull." ' ' Yes," replies 
Lampito, "I fancy I could, for I exercise myself in jumping till my 
heels touch my back." Doubtless, such personal vigour was not rare 
in Laconia ; the chastisement, then, of an annual vapulation, received 
from such hands, and inflicted, probably with considerable severity, 
for the honour of the fair sex, was a disagreeable tax on celibacy. 
Certainly, the victims would not be spared, if Euripides gives a just 
character of the Spartan females (av^pofiaveig) ; but, as a man, he 
was unjust to the sex in general ; and, as an Athenian, his testimony 
may be suspected, with regard to Lacedaemonian ladies in particular. 

It seems as if the institutions of this extraordinary state were 
always to be at variance with good sense and good feeling: the law 
commanded a man to marry, and then public opinion forbade him to 
associate with his wife. The early meetings of the wedded pair were 
contrived with secrecy, 3 and abridged in their duration, lest the absence 
of the bridegroom from his usual occupations and friends should 
awaken a suspicion of its cause. When the course of true love does 
not run smooth, it is often most interesting in its adventures ; in its 
alternations of hope and fear; in the tenderness of stolen meetings 
between parties engaged by affection, and yet separated by accident 
or thwarted by design ; in the bold dexterity of their interviews or the 
stratagems of their escape ; in their detection or in their success. But 
the romantic charm of these things is lost in their absurdity, when the 
marriage has been already ordered by the law, permitted by the fami- 
lies, and solemnized by the individuals. 

Still, in the unions thus singularly arranged and conducted, as there 
was commonly less disparity of years than was customary elsewhere, 
so there was more of mutual confidence and respect, 4 and as the 
married women enjoyed more public respect (their customary title, 
Uffiroivai, showed it), so the unmarried enjoyed more freedom. The 
men claimed no intellectual superiority, and on the common level of 
patriotism they met as equals. For this, the strongest instincts and 
the purest feelings were so far subdued, that Spartan mothers have 
been known to slay their sons for cowardice, or to count, with satis- 



1 Meursius, Mis. Lac. : pa.7rtZ,ovtri. 
3 Xenoph. Lac. Res. 



2 Lys. 78. 
4 Flut. As;is. 



EDUCATION OF THE SPAETANS. 



409 



faction, the honourable wounds upon their corpses. 1 The truly heroic 
patriotism of the mother of Brasidas is admirably contrasted with this 
unnatural ferocity. He who communicated to her that general's death, 
mixed commendation with condolence, by calling him the bravest of 
the Spartans. " Stranger," she replied, " my son was brave, but 
Sparta can boast of citizens still braver." 

These examples illustrate, perhaps, the best and the worst con- 
sequences produced by Spartan customs on the female mind and 
character : and here, before we pass on to the corresponding subject at 
Athens, we may consider the Lacedaemonians in one more of those 
relations which arise out of the structure of civil society — their 
conduct as masters to their servants. 

It might, indeed, have been supposed, that they who knew so well Slaves at 
the value of liberty, would be inclined to communicate its blessings, oppressed 
But the fact was so far otherwise, 2 that it was proverbially said, jgj raded 
" Where the free man is especially free, there the slave is especially a ° 
slave." The severity of the servitude inflicted on the Helots was an 
act of ungenerous revenge : as Messenians, they fought for their own 
independence with a pertinacity of resolution which a Spartan ought 
to have admired : whereas, the punishment inflicted on them was as 
degrading as it was unjust. As captives, they were the property of 
the state at large ; but it did not shield them from the cruelty or the 
caprice of an individual, while it did prevent them from profiting by 
his compassion. The foolish notions of national dignity which pre- 

1 Such traditionary stories are thus versified in the Greek Anthology : — 

Ta Ttravoc QoacvfiouXo; It' ia-Tiho: ri\v6iv a-Tvous 

'~Ettu too; ' Aoyiicov rgccvf&arct ^'Zdftive;, 
Anxvv; ccvria, Tiivrcc rov diftxToivret h' o T(£o~(->us 

Houh' It) TvoKcilnv Tvvvi-^o; sWs rife!; 
AnXoi xXcuio-QajOK* \yu h\ <ri rsxvov o.o'a.x.ou; 
toy xcci if/.ov x.ou Aotx.iha.i{t.oviov. 

Dioscorides floruit circiter 230 A. c, No. 464, Edwards' Greek Anthol. 
The aged Tynnicus, as he placed on the funeral pile his son Thrasybulus, brought 
home on his shield, having received seven honourable wounds in war, spake thus, 
— " Let cowards weep, I shall bury you, my son, without a tear — yea, my own and 
Sparta's son." 

E/j hn'taiv Ts/u.-*pcttra. Xo^ov; Awftctmrv oktu 

Tlulha.; vto arnXri Teivrecs s6a.Trt [tia, 
Acixovu. h' Ivx tppnl? It) vrivfeffiv dXXa rah iiTS9 

Movvov ua iTaLoru. aa\ rlxvct recur 'iriKot. 

No. 465. 

Demainete buried eight sons from the wars in one tomb : she shed no tears in her 
anguish, but only said, " Sparta ! I produced these sons for thee." Demetrius 
was killed by his mother for transgressing the laws, and she addresses him in the 
following maternal language : — 

"Eppt xctxov 0-x.uXu.x.iVfca, xctxa. f&to'l; 'ipps Tof "Aihctv 
"Eppv rov oh 2TCtorct; oL^iov ouh' 'Irixov. 

Tyranes. No. 468. 

' Begone, you base whelp, you fragment of villany, begone to the grave : unworthy 
of Sparta, you are no son of mine." See also No. 509 on the same subject. 

2 Plut. in Lyc. 



410 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



vailed, in some degree mitigated their condition ; for a Spartan could 
not condescend to cultivate his own land ; he therefore let it to the 
Helots, 1 who paid their rent, and enjoyed the surplus of the produce. 
In war, too, their services were employed ; seven Helots attended each 
Spartan at the battle of Platsea. 2 But, though the pride and idleness 
of their masters might thus allow them to acquire property, and 
though in imminent danger they might be trusted with arms, yet 
their numbers always made them an object of suspicion and alarm. 
In no other Grecian state did the slaves so far exceed the free popu- 
lation; probably, they were as five to one. On this account, the 
Laced aemonians endeavoured to break down their spirit by contumely 
and degradation ; so far had they succeeded, that some of them, being 
taken prisoners by the Thebans, and desired to sing the odes of 
Terpander, and other national songs, excused themselves, under the 
plea that it was forbidden by then masters. Their common dress was 
a badge of servitude, — their periodical chastisement, an ordinance of 
cruelty, 3 — their public exhibition in all the debasement of compulsory 
intoxication, intended as a warning to the citizens, was a gross and 
odious insult. The Cryptia, or ambuscade, was an institution of un- 
exampled cowardice and barbarity. It authorized the Spartan youth 
to disperse themselves in the country, armed with daggers, and, 
sallying forth by night, to kill all the Helots they could meet : nay, 
Their num- sometimes by day they fell 4 upon them in the fields, and murdered the 
by^tSe 11116 ' 1 stron g est °f them. Lest private cruelty and wanton power should 
policy. fail to thin their numbers efficiently, murder on a larger scale was per- 
petrated by public authority. A most atrocious example is recorded 
by Thucydides, of ingratitude, treachery, cowardice, and barbarity. 
In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonians sent 
out an army against the confederates of Athens, because they desired 
a pretence to send away part of theis Helots : " For," says the his- 
torian, " the Lacedaemonians had ever many ordinances concerning how 
to look to themselves against the Helots : they did also this further, 
fearing their youth and multitude; they caused proclamation to be 
made, that as many of them as claimed the estimation to have done 
the Lacedaemonians best service in their wars, should be made free ; 
feeling them in this manner, and conceiving that as they should every 
one, out of pride, deem himself worthy to be first made free, so they 
would soonest also rebel against them. And when they had thus 
preferred about two thousand, which also, with crowns on their heads, 
went in procession about the temples as to receive then liberty, they 
not long after made them away, and no man knew how they 
perished." 5 

If any further proof were wanted of the inhumanity of the Spartans 

1 Helots, i.e. prisoners, according to Miiller's derivation of the word, from \\ilv, 
to take, as from la.ua.ca.— Smith's Diet. Antiq. 

2 Herod, ix. 28. At this time they did not know gold from brass. — Herod, ix. 80. 

3 Plut. in Lyc. 4 Plut. in Lyc. 5 Hobbes, lib. ir. 80. 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



411 



towards their slaves, it may be found in a passage in iElian. 1 He has 
preserved a tradition, that when an earthquake damaged their city, 
popular opinion in Greece esteemed it a direct judgment from heaven, 
in consequence of this very inhumanity. Now, independent of the 
truth or the reasonableness of this opinion, its very existence is a 
curious fact. The treatment of slaves must have been very bad to 
have been noticed at all ; but to have excited such a strong and general 
feeling of condemnation, it must have been monstrous. For in general, 
the deliberate sentiments of the more educated minds combined with 
the prejudices of the vulgar ; they agreed, that this despised race had 
forfeited the rights of man. Philosophy made her speculations, and Any 
legislation her enactments, as if they had ceased to be rational beings. {jJJJSJf 1 / 
Accordingly, the very tender mercies of Grecian law towards them slave shown 
were cruel. The favour which public opinion extended to them was JS&ataest. 
conveyed in the language of insult : the very privileges it conceded 
became an additional mark of degradation. The legislator, who pro- 
tected them from certain acts of violence, was careful to add, that he 
did it not for their sakes, but for their master's : if he advises the 
citizen 2 to abstain from insulting his slaves, it is because such self- 
command proves his genuine love of justice, and promotes the culti- 
vation of his own moral virtue. 3 Still the slave was to be managed, 
not by advice, like a freeman, but by castigation, because Zeus was 
supposed to have taken away half his understanding. Again, he was 
a sort of living tool ; 4 his work, like the work of a shuttle, consisted 
in production; the exercise of reason is beyond his power, but he is 
competent to obey it, and herein, chiefly, he differs from tame animals ; 
but he performs the same labours, and for his own advantage becomes 
the property of his superiors. 5 It is clear, that in the eye of a 
Grecian legislator, a cast-iron image which could have worked by 
steam, would have been thought more valuable property than a slave ; 
for it would have eaten less, and lasted longer. 

The number 6 of these wretched beings in Attica was immense ; slaves at 
they bore to the free inhabitants the proportion of about three to one. 7 ^p®J y ed in 
The greater part were imported, for it was found more economical to handicraft, 
buy than to breed ; a capitation tax of three oboli a year was levied 
on them by the state. Even many of the poorer citizens had one. 
A little higher in the scale of society, several were employed in 
domestic purposes, in trades, and as mechanics. At Eome, slaves 

1 Var. Hist. vi. 7. 2 Plato de Leg. 6. 

3 "I would kill thee," said Charillus to a Helot, "were I not in a passion." 
(Plut. Apoph. St. John, vol. iii. p. 40.) Sceledrus, a slave in Plautus, says — 

Pray, spare your threats, I know the gallows waits me — 
A sepulchre where all my ancestors 
Have gone before me, father, grandfather. 

Braggard Captain, Act. 2, Sc. 8. — Thornton. 

4 l^vxov ooyavov. Ar. Eth. viii. 11. 

5 Arist. Pof. lib. i. 6 Boeckh's (Ec. Ath. 
7 Free population, 127,000 ; slave population, 400,000. 



412 



EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS. 



slaves at were a luxury and the outward sign of wealth : in Greece, they were 
Athens. investment of capital and returned interest. Trade of any kind 

was at no time much respected. The Athenians would advance money 
to others for carrying on mercantile concerns, but it was held dis- 
honourable to take part in them personally. 1 Demosthenes inherited 
fifty-two slaves from his father, some of whom were swordmakers and 
chairmakers. Nicias had a thousand, of whom many worked in the 
mines ; these he farmed out at an obolus apiece per day ; he who hired 
them, undertaking to provide them food, and keep up their number. 
The interest on their value, including the rent of the mines, is com- 
puted at about 47 per cent. The price of a slave, skilled in handi- 
craft, might be about five minse, while an ordinary one would cost 
Their two ; and a female player on the harp, twenty or thirty. 2 Still, 
therefore' slavery appeared at Athens in a milder form than elsewhere; inso- 
more much, that Demosthenes makes it the groundwork of a glowing 
tolerable. p aQe gy r j c U p n his country ; having cited a law which forbade the 
striking a slave, he adds, " You hear, Athenians, the humanity of 
the law, which prevents the offering insult even to a slave. What, 
in the name of the gods, do you think would be the sentiments of 
those nations, from whom slaves are purchased into Greece, should 
they be told that there were certain Greeks, men so gentle and 
humane, that, notwithstanding the accumulated injuries received from 
barbarians, and a natural and hereditary enmity to their race, yet did 
not allow these enemies to be ill-treated, even in servitude. * The 
account, however, of this philanthropy, which the orator apparently 
thought so wonderful, must be received with caution. The state had 
not the power to protect the slave altogether from the caprice and 
cruelty of individuals ; and in judicial proceedings, where it had the 
power, it had not the will. " Take the slave," says one of the cha- 
racters in a comedy of Aristophanes, <£ put him in the stocks, hang 
him up, flog him with a scourge of hog's bristles, flay him, put him 
on the rack, pour vinegar into his nose." 4 " I might as well," says 
a landed proprietor, in one of the letters of Alciphron, " I might as 
well keep a wolf as that accursed slave ; he kills all my goats ; some 
he sells, some he eats, consuming them until his inordinate appetite is 
quite oppressed by indigestion. The fold is neglected while he is 
playing the lute and the pipe, and indulging himself at the perfumer's. 
If I can catch him, his hands shall be tied ; he shall be heavily clogged, 
and the spade, the rake, and the prong shall drive out his luxurious 
notions, and teach him what rustic temperance is." 5 The law did, 
indeed, forbid an Athenian to strike the slaves of another (just as it 
forbade him to drive or kill his neighbour's cattle) ; but, if evidence 
was . wanted in court, torture was unsparingly applied. " Let my 
adversary," says Demosthenes, 6 " prove this point in question between 

1 Bekker's Charicles, Excursus, Scene 4, p. 221. 

a Boeckh, vol. i. 53, et seq. 3 Gillies, Arist. Pol. vol. ii. 37, note. 

4 Rame, 620. 5 Lib. iii. Ep. 23. 6 Dem. in Near. 



EDUCATION OF THE SPAKTANS. 413 

us, by submitting his female slaves to the torment ; and if they are 
damaged, I will pay for the injury done." The refusal of this rea- 
sonable request, the speaker seems to consider equivalent to a con- 
fession of guilt. Such circumstances are common in the Greek orators, 
and the insight they give us into the scenes of domestic life may 
diminish our admiration of these men, " so gentle and humane." It 
must, however, be allowed, that the sufferings of servitude were worse 
in other states. At Athens, the slaves, as a body constituted an Slaves served 
important part of society ; their services were valuable in the business m the fleet ' 
and the battles of a commercial and naval republic. Those who 
fought at the engagement of Arginusae received their enfranchisement 
as the reward of their valour; the same gift had also been bestowed 
on others, who had deserved it by the same exertions at an earlier 
period of the Peloponnesian war. Besides, their treatment at home 
was less degrading; no particular dress distinguished them from and had some 
citizens. Under oppression, the temple of Theseus was their refuge ; 5j£ al 
they had the right of appeal to the local authorities, and those who 
could acquire property might purchase their freedom. The sense of 
their own importance to the state made them impertinent as a body, 
while to their own masters, they were by turns servile or insolent; 
at one time threatened with the lash, or crucifixion, for their dis- 
honesty ; at another time, courted for those arts of cunning and 
intrigue which made them useful in ministering to the vices, or pro- 
moting the interests, of their owners. Such, at least, is the character 
of the Greek slave in the dramas of Plautus ; and, as these are a 
transcript of the old Greek comedy, the representatation is probably 
correct. 




SECTION V. 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 

Domestic The view which we, who have descended so far down the stream 

manners of 
the Greeks 



iers k ° s f of time, are enabled to take of the structure of Grecian society, may 



be compared to that distant prospect of a country which a mariner 
enjoys, while he navigates along its coasts. Occasionally a valley or a 
bay may lay open the interior, and his view may be extensive and 
distinct: bright lights falling on particular objects, may bring them 
into strong relief, and mark then outline with exactness. Much, how- 
ever, is altogether concealed, and of that which is seen, much is 
necessarily indistinct. Researches into Grecian manners are attended 
with similar disadvantages ; information on the subject is scanty and 
scantily iiius- unconnected ; for there are not, and it is probable there never were, 
thSiera m J P ort i° ns °f Grecian literature which correspond with those depart^ 
ture. ments from whence the domestic manners of modern times may be so 

copiously illustrated. This species of composition presupposes a 
reading public, which had no existence in Athens : even as late as the 
time of Plato the trade in books was small; those also who were 
willing to undertake the labour of writing, when circulation was slow 
and limited, profits inconsiderable, and reputation remote, commonly 
chose graver subjects. The most spirited general sketch of the morals 
of the age, namely, the account of the Corcyrian sedition, is intro- 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



415 



duced as part of the history of the Pelopormesian war; the most 
minute details we possess respecting the family of an Athenian gen- 
tleman are connected with a philosophical discussion on the use of 
property. Neither the one subject nor the other would have been 
treated on its own account. The Athenians had no biographical 
memoirs, essays, novels, nor journals, for they were not a reading 
people ; though the tender sentiment expressed itself by kciXog, or 
icakrj, with the name of the loved one on the walls and pillars of the 
market and Cerameicus 1 ; but, as they were a seeing, hearing, and 
play-frequenting nation, they had comedies in abundance. The cha- 
racter of these compositions, as they were more or less offensively The old 
personal and political, has suggested an arrangement of them, under ^£1. 
three heads, — the old comedy, the middle, and the new. In each 
department, authors 2 were numerous. 3 " Though the new comedy 
developed itself and flourished only in the short interval between the 
end of the Peloponnesian war and the first successors of Alexander The new 
the Great, yet the stock of pieces amounted to thousands." 4 The cha- domestic, 
racters of social life at Athens at that time, as it is reflected to us in 
the theatrical mirror, are the austere and stingy, or the mild and easy 
father, the latter not unfrequently afraid of his wife, and making 
common cause with the son against her ; the housewife either loving 
or domineering — the young man giddy and extravagant, yet frank and 
amiable — the courtesan — the simple or cunning slave who assists his 
young master to deceive the father : the flatterer, the sycophant who 
stirs up lawsuits and offers to conduct them — the gasconading soldier 
boasting his exploits in foreign wars — the dealer in female slaves — the 
buffoon, jesting on himself and others. Such were the characters : 5 
the plot was occasionally something of this sort — a young man, citizen 
of Athens, falls in love with a young woman whom he must not 
marry because she is apparently not free-born : as the action of the 
comedy is unfolded, it turns out that she was exposed in infancy by 
her parents, and is by birth an Athenian citizen — thereupon the parties 
marry. 

The genius of some comic authors must have been wonderfully Numerous 
prolific. Antiphanes has the credit of 290 dramas ; Alexis of 245 ; JftheTOmic 
Philemon, who was second only to Menander, of 97. The titles writers, 
which remain of these, and others, sufficient indicate the nature and 
extent of our loss. Such comedies 6 as the Gamesters, the Nuptials, 
Sappho, the Parasite, the Glutton, the Poor Men, the Pedagogues, 
Woman's Love and Woman's Tyranny, the Philosopher's Cloak, 
would have shed a light upon domestic manners, which it is vain to 

1 Bekker, Scene 11. 

2 Of the old comedy, 52 ; of the middle, 34 ; of the new, 20. Int. Fast. Hell. 

3 Plays of the old comedy were 365 ; of the middle, 617 ; nay, Athenseus says 
that he himself had read above 800 plays of the middle comedy. — Bentley. 

4 Schlegel, Lecture 13. 

5 Schlegel ; compare also Terence, Prologue in Eunuchus. 

6 Cumberland's Observer, vol. ii. 



416 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



The comic seek elsewhere 1 . But, unfortunately, the fragments of the comic muse 
*Stches o? rd are ^ ew an( * comparatively insignificant ; of thirty-two writers of the 
social life, middle sera, scarcely a thousand lines have been preserved. 2 The 
ravages of time naturally destroyed much ; and, when Christianity was 
established, 3 these were assisted by the scruples of piety. Saint 
Chrysostome is said to have saved the works of Aristophanes. Had 
any other saint extended the same protection to the writers of the 
new comedy, our present knowledge respecting female society in 
Greece would have been more accurate and enlarged. For the writers 
of the second sera were restrained from introducing " their fellow- 
citizens by name as characters in the dialogue." 4 Personal and 
political satire thus became less effective, and therefore the attention 
of comic authors was likely to be drawn more towards domestic life ; 
and they sketched from living models, not only Athenian wives and 
mothers among the higher classes, but other less respectable characters 
also, who, by their numbers, their personal qualifications, and their 
influence, held an important place in the constitution of female society 
in Greece. In default, however, of this assistance, although materials 
are inadequate to the design of tracing, with precision, the changes 
which may be supposed to have arisen in the habits of social life, an 
attempt may still be made to collect and arrange the scattered notices 
which remain. 

Female in- There is a curious distich preserved from Posidippus to this efiect, 
tanticide that, " even a poor man will take the pains to bring up a son, whereas 
a rich man will scarcely be induced to rear a daughter." 5 This alludes 
to the unnatural law which made it optional to a parent whether he 
would or would not preserve his offspring. " You remember," says 
a wife to her husband, in the Heautontimoroumenos of Terence, 6 
" you insisted very strongly that if the (expected) child should prove 
a girl, you did not choose to rear it." It is remarkable, that this 
unnatural barbarity occurs in the same play with a passage that has 
passed into a, proverb, for its enlightened and expanded philanthropy : 
" Homo sum nihil humani a me alienum puto." 7 In the Andria, it is 
esteemed an act of madness on the part of two lovers, that they had 
determined to preserve their expected infant, whatever its sex might 

1 To this list may be added the Tarentines, the Milesians, the Locrians, the 
Usurer, the Cook, the Soldier, the Vine-dresser, the Physician. Stolle on Greek 
Comedy, p. 53. 

2 Of seventy tragedies composed by Aristarchus of Tegea, one line only remains. 
Greek Theatre, 151. 

3 See Coleridge's Classic Poets, p. 144. * Int. Fast. Hell. 41. 

Suyctripu, V iKTiSniri kuv y 9tKevtrtos> 

Stobceus, 78. 

6 Act 3, Scene 5. 

7 " I am a man : nothing relating to man is uninteresting to me." This is 
something like a well-known line — 

One touch of feeling makes the whole world kin. 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



417 



be. These passages are not indeed extracts, but the plays in which 
they occur are copies, of the Greek comedy ; and they are curious and 
presumptive proofs of the low estimation in which females, as such, 1 
were held. Their condition and happiness depend much on public 
opinion, which is always regulated by men ; wheresoever, then, one 
sex is degraded, as it was in Greece, the fault originates with the 
other, and the misfortune extends to both. 

On this subject, there are some observations of Socrates, preserved Low state 
in one of Xenophon's dialogues. Conversing one day with his friend ^^^011 
Critobulus, with reference to domestic economy, he says, " I can point 
out to you some men who treat their wives in such a way, 2 as to 
secure their co-operation in promoting the welfare of the family, and 
others, whose behaviour to them is such, that its best interests suffer." 
Is the fault, in that case, replies his companion, with the husband or 
with the wife? To this pertinent question, Socrates answers, " If the 
cattle suffer, we blame the shepherd ; when a horse does mischief, we 
condemn the rider ; and, in like manner, if a wife, after having been 
properly instructed by her husband, conducts herself ill, the blame 
rests with herself, otherwise it rests with him." This illustration is 
not, perhaps, very complimentary, but the distinction is substantially 
just ; and it is abundantly clear, that, in general, no efforts of educa- 
tion were made to qualify Athenian women to deserve confidence, or 
enjoy society, either by their parents before marriage, or by their 
husbands afterwards. " How," says one of the interlocutors of the 
same dialogue, — " how could my wife have learned anything at home ? 
She was not fifteen when she married ; her father and mother had 
brought her up with great care, so that she might see as little as 
possible, hear as little as possible, and ask as few questions as possible." 
This emphasis of repetition strongly marks the value that was attached 
to female 3 ignorance. 

Their life was, indeed, a state of seclusion and restraint. No daughter Domestic 
of a free citizen could, with propriety, have attended a school beyond females" ° f 
her father's house ; and because the scene of Greek comedy lies in the 
street, the daughter is not one of the personam, though father, mother, 
and son are. Houses were generally built round a quadrangle, which 
opened by a gate in the street. At a distance from this entrance, behind 
the part allotted to the men, but on the same level, 4 the women occupied 
their sleeping-rooms, and those apartments where woollen materials 
were stored and wrought. A fondness for the latter occupation was 
an important female 5 excellence, because the clothing of the family was 

1 XctXitrov yz (SvydirnQ wrnpa, ku.) Ivo^ioihrov.—^Menander . 

2 Menander has some good advice on this subject in a fragment preserved by 
Stobaeus, 74, beginning — 

to {u.lv ftzyiffTov 0U9T0T avb^cc %(>ri ffotyov 
Xidv (pukcMrauv kXo^ov iv ^np^aT? ^oucov. 

3 Conf. Soph. Fragm. Brunck. ii. 319. 4 SeeBekker's plan of a Greek house. 
5 QiXioyitx, olviv J.viXlukgtc&s- — Ar. Khet. 

2 E 



418 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



usually made at home. Beyond their precincts Athenian ladies ought 
not to have passed, except on occasion of some public festivities, or 
some religious rites. Such laws were of course frequently evaded by 
their own dexterity, or dispensed with by their husbands' indulgence ; 
but they might be enforced, either by the severity of his anger, or the 
suspicions of his jealousy. Some curious traits of domestic etiquette 
occur in the old dramas. A married woman, says Menander, ought 
not to appear beyond the door of the court. A princess in Euripides 
obtains her mother's permission to view a distant battle from the 
house-top : " stay, however," says the paedagogue, " till I have examined 
the passages, for if any of the citizens should see you I shall be blamed 
as negligent of my duty, and you as careless of your reputation." 1 The 
stage, moreover, echoed the proverb of domestic life, that silence was 
the ornament of women ; 2 or if she were allowed to break it, it must 
be at home among her servants. A question whether the state were 
likely to have peace or war, was answered by a suggestion that the 
loom and the distaff were unoccupied. 3 The sculptor too, who placed 
his Aphrodite on a tortoise, thus reminded the sex that their duties were 
at home ; the orator rarely mentioned them, and if he did, his address 
was unfeeling ; the general who animated his troops, appealed to their 
patrotic not their domestic affections. He, whose unrivalled funeral 
oration delights the readers of Thucydides, could eloquently expatiate 
on the constitution of Athens, — her ancient renown, — her general 
encouragement of talent, — the festive gaiety of her recreations, — her 
energy in political business, — her conquests in war, — her hospitality 
to strangers, — the easy freedom, and the various luxuries of her social 
life, contrasted in all the subtlety of dextrous insinuation with Spartan 
institutions, discipline, and manners ; and how does he dismiss the 
widows, sisters, and mothers of those who had fallen nobly in their 
country's cause? If, he adds, I ought to say something of female 
excellence, with reference to those who are now in widowhood, a 
short exhortation will comprise the whole ; " It is your great glory to 
show yourselves not unworthy of your natural character, and that the 
least possible mention should be made of you among the men, either 
by way of praise or of condemnation." 
influence of Such negative approbation, however, was not calculated to satisfy 
female* 5 ° n ^ e vanity of Athenian dames. Their energies were not to be confined 
society. within four walls, 4 or their sensibilities engrossed by the spindle and 
its woollen appurtenances, though tortoises were carved by Phidias, 
and orations made by Pericles. The latter, indeed, had, of all men, 
least right to be censor of female morality : whatever might have been 
the vices or the follies of his countrymen, — and undoubtedly they 
were deep and numerous, — he was, in great measure, the cause of 
them. For his taste and talents polished society without purifying it: 
his example, and his choice of friends, raised into place and influence 

1 Eur. Phamiss. 88 ; conf. Androm. 876. 2 Aj. 292 

3 Aristoph. Lys. 519. 4 Menander apud Stob. 89. 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



419 



a class of females who were the rivals of Athenian matrons in their 
husband's regard, and who were far better formed for that companion- 
ship which their name Hetaerae implied, by every qualification, except 
respectability of character. But before we enter upon this subject, it 
may be an interesting inquiry to trace the public ceremonies which 
preceded marriage, and the occupations of domestic life which fol- 
lowed it. 

As unmarried females 1 generally lived in strict seclusion, they could Marriages 
not form many acquaintances among the other sex ; and therefore S^aby 
their parents' choice of a partner for life was not likely to be opposed the^parents 
by any pre-existing preference. " My father," says a lady on the parties, 
tragic stage, "will take care of my marriage; it is not my concern to 
think about it." Still such indifference was not universal ; for many 
of the public processions and festivals which girls were allowed to 
join, besides being religious solemnities, were also opportunities of 
attachment, seduction, or intrigue. Hence, the bridegroom, selected 
by one party, was not always acceptable to the other. A letter, on 
exactly such an occasion, preserved in Alciphron, expresses the same 
love and the same despair which, under similar circumstances, occur 
in present times. The reply is singularly curious : the remedy it 
suggests is so compendious and complete, that modern damsels may 
congratulate themselves in the change, both in civil institutions, and in 




the habits and feelings of private life, which have now superseded its 
application. Glaucippe, having strongly expressed her disinclination 

1 Douglas writes thus about the modern Greeks (p. 108): — "The Greek girls 
are so strictly confined to their homes that few of their marriages are founded on 
personal attachment. The agreement of the respective parents, often made at the 
birth of the child, or even at their own marriage, can be but little influenced by 
[ le rapport des esprits et des coeurs, des sentimens, des gouts, et des humeurs.' 

Ihxgdivixriv <pv\u.<r<rs vro\u>cXzi<rroi; 0uka/x,oicrtv 

M*j2s filv a.%01 yu.ft.uv Tt^o iHtficav Q<p6nvcu learn- 

Brunch. Com. Frag. 
1 Lock up your girls safely, never let them be seen outside the house till they 
are married.' " 

2 e 2 



420 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



Form of 

hetrothme'nt 

political. 



Marriage 
ceremonies 
of (he Athe- 
nians. 



to a match proposed by her parents, receives this answer from her 
mother : — 

Charope to Glaucippe. — "You are mad, my dear daughter, and 
quite beside yourself : be tranquil, return to your senses, and banish 
this pernicious affection ; for if your father should hear anything that 
has passed, without the least hesitation or delay he will toss you into 
the sea, to feed the monsters of the deep." 1 

Indeed, the happiness of the wedded pair was not much consulted 
in matrimonial arrangements. That children should be legitimately 
born to supply the state with free citizens was essential to its welfare : 
and if the parents chanced to be mutually happy in each other, it was 
a fortunate accident. Aristotle, 2 in his Politics, advises that women 
should marry at eighteen, and men at thirty-seven : he treats it as an 
affair, in which the legislator should determine the age and qualities of 
those who are fit to be united : winter is recommended by the natural- 
ists, as the season, and a north wind esteemed desirable. The very 
form 3 of betrothment had a political aspect:—" I give you this my 
daughter, to make you the father of children lawfully begotten." 

Before marriage, young women went in procession with presents to 
Artemis and Athene, asking permission to desert their virgin train. 
The ceremony itself was preceded by prayer and sacrifice : the gall of 
the victim was carefully cast away, as if to banish for ever those 
bitter dispositions to which it had an analogical resemblance. A 
gilded garland decked the bride with roses, verbena, Iryacinth, and 
other flowers and herbs, to which custom or mythology 4 had annexed 
a figurative sense. The thorns of the wild asparagus were emblematic 
of the difficulties of the lover's pursuit ; its fruit typified the value of 
his acquisition : cakes of sesame were an omen of fraitfulness. That 
the bride might be reminded of the household duties of the wife, she 
carried to her husband's home a vessel for roasting barley. The 

chariot which conveyed her was 
preceded by torches, and in some 
places, its axletree was broken at 
the door, to indicate that she re- 
turned thence no more ; as she 
entered, fruits were poured upon 
her head ; a banquet which, ia 
fact, accredited the marriage, 
awaited her, 5 graced by music and 
the dance ; a basket of loaves, together with branches of the oak, 

1 Alciph. Ep. lib. ii. 5. 2 Pol. lib. iv. 3 Menander. 

4 During the ceremony itself, two chaplets of lilies and ears of corn, emblems of 
purity and abundance, are placed by the priest alternately upon the heads both of 
the bride and bridegroom, and a similar rite is performed with two rings of gold 
and silver. Catullus, in his Epithalamium, has mentioned no event, consistent 
with the change in the religion, which does not take place at the, wedding of a 
modern Greek. Douglas, p. HO. 

5 Bekker. 




STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHEXS. 



421 



was carried round, to intimate, by symbols, that the change from 
celibacv to marriage was as pleasing and as beneficial as that, in 
earlier ages, from acorn diet to bread. To kindle and to bear on high 
the nuptial torch was the mother's privilege; 1 and when the married 
couple had supped upon a quince, as by law appointed, the festivities 
of the day concluded, by the relations joining in the hymeneal song. Marriage 
Within the week presents were brought, such as robes, vessels, P resents - 
couches, plate, ointment-boxes, sandals, and the various necessaries of 
housekeeping. 

It must be acknowledged, that the life to which these ceremonies 
were the introduction was of a very different character; the latter 
were cheerful, pleasing, and poetical ; the former was dull, mono- 
tonous, and unsocial; for married women dined with their husbands 
only if he had no male friends at table. 2 In the very focus 
of civilization, the women were treated as a lower order of beings, 
neglected by nature in comparison with men, both in intellect and 
heart, unserviceable for public life, and easily inclined to evil. 3 One 
treatise 4 of antiquity has made us acquainted with domestic life : it 
should be borne in mind, that the parties in question were among the 
wealthy citizens of Athens ; and he whose inquiry draws out these 
circumstances, evidently considers them as a picture, nearly perfect, of 
that happiness which matrimonv was capable of conferring. 

There lived in Athens, in the time of Socrates, one whom men and Household 
women, strangers and citizens, agreed to call a complete gentleman : ischomac * 
with this Ischomachus, the philosopher contrives a meeting, and, 
having complimented him upon his reputation, (one great cause of 
which Ischomachus himself seems to think was, that he did not pass 
much of his time at home,) he pursues the inquiry respecting his 
wife ; it was the same lady whose education at home, and early 
marriage, have been before mentioned. Upon this, the Athenian 
gentleman gives the following account of his domestic economy : — Athenian 
" My wife," says he, 1 ' knew when she came from her father's house, how ousewl e 
to make a robe, to distribute to her maids their tasks of spinning, and 
instruct those who were inexperienced. As to her appetite, she was 
temperate, — a great point both in man and woman. After a mutual 
sacrifice, and prayer, that my instructions might be profitable, I taught 
her that our property was to be in common, — that we were to bring 
up our children to be our comfort in old age, — that it was her business 
to take care of the things in the house : I showed her the various 
receptacles where she was to stow away the crops, the corn in the 
dry, the wine in the cool ; the chambers for woollen garments, and 
stores of dresses, with male and female shoes, lady's holiday costume, 
— things used in sacrifice, and tools for wool-carding, grinding, roasting, 
and baking. I pointed out the apartments of the female slaves, separate 
from those of the men, that no increase of family might occur without 



1 Phaeniss. 344 ; Iphig. in Aulis, 722. 
3 Bekker, Excursus to Scene 12. 



2 Bekker. 

4 Xenoph. (Econom. 



422 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



our permission. She was to superintend the manufacture of woollen 
garments ; like the queen-bee, who does not allow the rest to be idle, 

but sets 1 them their tasks. 
She was to take care that a 
year's provision was not con- 
sumed in a month, and be 
attentive to the sick slaves ; 
above all things, to be or- 
derly, to have a place for 
everything, and from time to 
time to review the household 
implements, as a commanding 
officer does his troops." 
Female em- A modern reader might suppose this complete gentleman of Athens 
pioyments at was hiring a housemaid, rather than conversing with his wife. The 

no mo, o 7 o 

lady, however, is delighted with her sphere of occupation ; and 
Socrates, hearing that she had promised diligence in the care of her 
household, exclaims, with admiration, "By Here! you have described 
quite a noble disposition in this your wife." To this commendation, 
Ischomachus replied, " I can give you an instance of real magnanimity 
in her ready obedience to me. She had once rubbed a considerable 
portion of white paint into her face, and an herb that gave a redness 
to her countenance beyond its natural complexion : 2 she also wore high 
shoes to make herself taller. Accordingly, I said to her, ' do you think 
it would be handsome in me to pass myself off to you as richer than I 
am, and show you false necklaces, counterfeit money, and dyed dresses 
for genuine ? or do you wish me to stain my eyes with vermilion ? 
Lay aside, then, all this artificial colouring, which a shower of tears 
may destroy : you will get a good colour, health, and appetite, — not 
by sitting still everlastingly, but by walking from loom to loom, 
improving yourself, and instructing others, — overlooking the baker, — 
superintending the distributions of the housekeeper, — observing if all 
things are in their place. Besides, you can wet the flour for bread, 
pound it in a mortar, or shake and fold the clothes and blankets, thus 
combining wholesome exercise with domestic duties.' " 
An Athenian Upon this Socrates remarks, " I have heard enough of your wife to 
gentleman's be convinced that you both deserve high commendation. Now, as to 
in the J 1 " yourself, how do you pass your time ?" The freedom of this request 
country. ^ oes not p reve nt its being gratified. " I begin the day," replies 
Ischomachus, " with prayer to the gods for health, strength, honour in 
the city, affection from my friends, safety in war, and an honest increase 

» See Proverbs, xxxi. 13, 15, 19, 27. 

2 The Greeks had a game like our forfeits. Once, when it came to the turn of the 
beautiful Phryne to play queen, she ordered that every lady should wash her face : 
she appeared only the more lovely and fresh after the process ; but, alas for the 
others ! when the anchusa psimmathion and phukos had been removed by the 
water, their freckled and coarse skins exposed them to general laughter. St. John, 
vol. i. p. 155. 




STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



423 



of my property ; which blessings I endeavour to deserve by my 
conduct ; for the respect I pay to the gods is on an expensive scale ; 
I assist any friend who is in need, and contribute to the decoration of 
the city. On rising in the morning, I admit any who may want to see 
me, or transact what business I may have in the town. In that case I 
send my horse forward into the country, walk thither and inspect those 
who are sowing, planting, carrying, or laying down the fallows. 1 Then 
I practise on horseback such manoeuvres as are useful in war, leaping 
banks and ditches as they come : afterwards, I use the strigil, and dine 
temperately. These exercises and occupations preserve my health and 
property, and fit me for military service. In order, moreover, to 
protect myself in case of accusation, I practise speaking at home, 
listening to the disputes of my domestics, detecting their falsehoods ; 
or I converse with my friends, or reconcile any that may be at 
variance." 

The writings of antiquity have given us no picture, so complete as ^®^of the 
this, of the private life of those Athenian landed proprietors, whom city 
neither mercantile traffic, nor judicial business, seduced from their rural 
occupations. The latter, of course, were often exchanged for politics 
in the assembly, scandal 2 in the perfumers' shops or the Agora, philo- 
sophy on the banks of the Ilissus, games in the Gymnasia, or law in 
the courts. Hunting, too, was a favourite amusement in the country ; 
life in the city was enlivened by various civil and religious festivals. 3 
Men might pass their life amidst these agreeable vicissitudes : women, scarcely ever 
on the contrary, had none of the excitement of business, few of the fg'jj^igg ^ 
pleasures of recreation, 4 and even from convivial parties they were 
excluded. Some submitted to their lot through habit, fear, or in- 
difference ; others, probably the greater part, found refuge in the 

1 The love of the Athenians for a country life is strongly brought out in 
Thucyd. lib. ii. 14, et seq. 

2 The following lively picture of city life is from Bekker, Scene 5 : — " The paths 
leading to the Academy, the Lyceion, and Cynosarges were now most frequented. 
The free burgher who was not confined to the close atmosphere of his domicile by 
any base handicraft sought these places of meeting, perhaps in order to whet his 
appetite by some invigorating exercise, a warm or cold bath, or it might be by a 
constitutional in the Dromos, or perhaps he amused himself by being a spectator of 
the dexterity and agile feats of the wrestlers. Here a sophist, seated amidst his 
scholars, was discussing by question and answer the pros and cons of some question 
in ethics ; here a rhetorician was making a critical examination of a speech elabo- 
rated by one of his pupils." 

3 Pericl. Fun. Or. 

4 <rou; tyis yxpirTjg ogovs VKig&uUuS) yuvai, 
'tXiudigcc. yvvxixi vivo/^itrTui. 

Menander, apod Stob. 19. 

" lady, you transgress the limits of a wife through wilfulness ; for, to a woman 
of birth, the appointed boundary is the court-yard gate." — In another fragment 
(No. 74), Menander gives better advice : " A wise man ought not to keep his wife 
too much shut up at home : by sight-seeing and visiting she escapes a great many 
evils." 



424 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



Hetaerae. 



follies of dress, 1 or the vices of intrigue. These evils were naturally 
engendered by a life so solitary, by such vacancy of mind, and by the 
possession of activity and talents, without their appropriate occu- 
pations. 2 The Athenian ladies, too, had an additional cause of 
exasperation in that latitude of immorality which custom allowed their 
husbands. It not only pardoned their conjugal irregularities, but it 
raised the Hetaerae to such a level of education and accomplishments, 
as modesty and virtuous merit were not suffered to ascend. They 
Education of were trained to perform skilfully on musical instruments, to sing and 
the HetBerae. cknce, their minds 3 and talents were cultivated, and the peculiarities of 
their natural characters drawn out, by a more free and even a more 
literary intercourse 4 of society than their rivals were allowed to share. 
Their very name implies a companionship for which the others were not 
qualified. Having added to their attainments in the fine arts a know- 
ledge of philosophy, and the powers of eloquence, they became thus 
trained and educated the companions of orators, statesmen, and poets. 5 
In the Persian war, Thargelia acquired considerable political influence 
by her wit and politeness : the society of Aspasia, who was first the 
mistress, and afterwards the wife of Pericles, was courted by philo- 
sophers and statesmen : the former profited by her wisdom, the latter 
by her powers of eloquence ; and even the most transcendant orator of 
his time, — " he, who alone struck a sting into the very souls of Ins 
hearers, and left it there to remain for ever," 6 — is said to have been 
assisted by this extraordinary woman. There was, indeed, no reason 
in the nature of things why Grecian females should not abundantly 
repay any culture that was laid out in their education ; and if Athe- 
nians chose to confine this culture exclusively to their Hetaerae, their 
selfishness was as ill-judged as it was ungenerous. 

The extent of their outrage against wedded affection, and the prin- 
ciples on which it was perpetrated, are stated by Demosthenes : 7 
stated, too, in all the publicity of a court of justice, as a matter of 
general notoriety and experience, — a fact, that admitted no doubt, and 
required no apology. But still, while public opinion was so lax, and 
the usual habits of domestic life so shameless, the law recognised the 
superiority of virtue. The severity of its institutions which guarded 

1 Aristoph. Lysist. 

2 Si les Francais pouvoient dormer a leurs femmes toutes les vertus des An- 
glaises, leurs moeurs retirees, leur gout pour la solitude, ils feraienc tres-bien de 
preferer de telles qualites a tous les dons d'un esprit e'clatant ; mais ce qu'ils pour- 
roient obtenir de leur femmes, ce seroit de ne rien lire, de ne rien savoir, de n'avoir 
jamais dans la conversation ni une idee interessante, ni une expression heureuse, ni 
un langage releve, loin que cette bien-heureuse ignorance les fixat dans leur inte- 
rieur, leurs enfans leur devriendroient a-la-fois moins chers lorsqu'elles seroient 
hors d'etat de diriger leur education. Le monde leur deviendroit plus necessaire 
et plus dangereux : car on ne pourroit jamais leur paiier que d'amour, et cet amour 
n'auroit pas meme la delicatesse qui peut tenir lieu de moralite'. — Mde. de Stael, 
De la Litterature, vol. ii. p. 153. 3 Dem. in Neaer. 

4 Laert. in Plat. ~ 5 Dunlop, Rom. Lit. vol. i. 230. 

6 Eupolis. Fragm. : xwrgov lyKwrtXitftv. 7 Dem. in Neser. 



Respect 
paid to 
marriage 
politically 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



425 



the conduct of women of respectability, showed the value that was 
attached to them politically. Solon forbade them to go beyond the 
city walls with more than three robes, or more provisions than a small 
basket would contain. Nor might they go out at night, except in a 
carriage, preceded by lamps. There was, at all times, a magistrate, 
whose office it was to superintend the sex in general, and anything 
indecorous, either in dress or behaviour^ was punished by a fine of 
a thousand drachmae. The restrictions thrown around their marriages 
proved the anxiety of the state that Athenian blood should flow 
unmixed in the veins of their offspring. No foreigners 1 might become 
their husbands, on pain of bondage and confiscation. An heiress was 
obliged to marry her nearest relation ; and even although she became 
one after marriage, 2 the heir at law might still claim her person, and 
her inheritance. An orphan virgin who had no portion might claim 
the hand of her nearest kinsman, or a dowry proportionate to his rank 
in the state. The law, too, secured to women of character certain 
privileges of dress, — access to the temples, — and the performance of 
religious rites, — from all which the Heteerse were excluded. In case 
of their assumption of these decorations, or their intrusion into these 
assemblies, the right of punishment lay with the parties whom they 
insulted by their presence ; their dress might be torn off, and, provided 
fife was spared, no ill usage was unlawful. Nor did the new comedy The writers 
spare these enemies of all that was chaste and respectable : political ^m^y™ 
abuse was less freelv allowed ; and satire, therefore, sought materials satirise/! the 
in the extravagance of a Lais, or the wealth and ambition of a Phryne, Hetserae 
who offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes, if her name might be 
inscribed on the structure. The comic stage inveighed against the 
luxury of the sisterhood, their arts, and their treachery, or it exulted 
over their reverses ; but in all this, there was more of anger and dis- 
appointment, than purity of feeling, or honourable and righteous 
indignation. For their attacks on the Hetserse were not more frequent, and wedded 
nor more acrimonious, than those on marriage itself : 3 so that the cause eqSJ ,th 
of virtue gained little from writers, who abused Athenian wives as bitterness. 

1 Dem. in Neser. 2 Isarus. 

3 See Com. Grsec. Fragm. Brunck. 91, 94, 224, and 226, and Cumberland's 
Observer, vol. ii. 

Ovhifoff iTou^a tov xa\u>s vrsQgovriKtv 
"H to xetKonSis Tgoso^ov uuhv tfOltTv. 

Menander in Stob. 83. 
" An Hetsera, who is accustomed to lead an immoral life, never casts a thought 
on honour." 

yiyuf^vixi ^wttov, t'i trv X&yzig, u.\y6ivw$ 
ysyifA'/lKiv, ov \yu XJuvtu. wiqi<xutouvtu. ti 

XXTiXlTOV. 

Antiphanes in Athenwus, p. 559. 
" Married ! what do you mean, really married ? Why, 'tis only just now I left 
him alive and merry." See also some lines, perhaps Susarion's, in Bentley, 
Phaleris — 6.kovIti Xtu$. x. r. A.. ; and Menander in Athenaeus, lib. xiii. ov ya^zTs «> 
vouv ix'fS' 



426 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



Political 
regulations 
respecting 
Widows and 
heiresses. 



Wives and 
daughters 
bequeathed 
by will. 



Married life 
as portrayed 
in the 

Aristophanic 
comedy. 



indiscriminately and as severely as their rivals. Such passages may be 
found amidst the fragments of Alexis, Antiphanes, and others ; but in 
general, they have little to recommend them, either in novelty of 
invective or sprightliness of fancy. 

It will, probably, have appeared from this brief sketch of female 
society, subsequently to the age of Pericles, that it contained within 
itself the causes of its own moral degradation, — seclusion without 
domestic affection, — leisure without adequate occupation, 1 — activity o^ 
mind, without scope or object, — the authority of a master, without 
the fidelity of a husband, — and rivals, whom they could neither escape 
nor meet on equal terms. These ingredients of domestic life naturally 
provoked retaliation, and guilt justified the suspicion which innocence 
could not hope to avoid. For these disadvantages of their social 
condition, they were not indemnified by the respect which was shown 
them publicly : their political importance was bought at too high a 
price ; for that freedom which they transmitted as the birthright of 
their sons, they might not enjoy themselves. In fact, their life was a 
state of perpetual vassalage : as girls, they might not marry without 
the consent of their natural or legal guardian ; as wives, they might 
be separated from then husbands, as widows they might be claimed 
by the nearest of kin, unless, indeed, they had been bequeathed 
to some one else by the prospective care of the deceased. The form 
of such a bequest is actually preserved; — "This is the last will of 
Pasio, the Acharnian ; ' I give my wife, Archippe, to Phormio, with 
a fortune of one talent.' " Demosthenes, also speaking of his father's 
will, says, " To Demophon he gave my sister, with a portion of two 
talents, and to the defendant he gave my mother." This arrangement, 
however, was not compulsory on the widow ; but it supersedes the 
necessity of such espousals as were necessary to give validity to a first 
marriage : these espousals were a contract between the man, and the 
woman's guardian (nvpiog). A woman becoming an heiress after 
her marriage might be claimed as a wife by the next of kin. The 
female representative of a family teas an heiress whether she had pro- 
perty or not, and the next of kin was bound to marry her, or to give 
her a portion suitable to his rank. 2 

Of such a system, criminality was the natural consequence. If the 
imputations laid on the sex by the Aristophanic comedy 3 had not had 
some foundation in truth (allowance being made for comic exaggera- 
tion), they would neither have been invented by the dramatist nor 
tolerated by the audience : unless they had borne such a resemblance 
to real life as comedy was privileged to draw, they could have had 



1 The disputed question whether women might attend the tragic theatre (comedy- 
was out of the question) has been determined in the affirmative bv Bekker (Ex- 
cursus to Scene 10, p. 299), on the authority of a fragment quoted from Satyrus 
by Athenasus (lib. xii. p. 534, Casaubon). 

2 See Kennedy's notes on his translation of some of Demosthenes' speeches. 
Conf. Ruth, ii. 12. 3 Thesm. Eccles. 



STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 



427 



no merit whatsoever. In one of these plays, the ladies complain that 
they are the victims of suspicion : l scarcely are their husbands returned 
from the theatre, when they look askance, and search the house for a 
paramour. If a girl looks pale, a lover is suspected ; if a garland is 
woven, it is for a gallant. To scare such 
intruders, Molossian dogs are kept ; locks 
and seals are put on the women's cham- 
bers ; even to gaze from the windows is 
forbidden ; 2 the very store-room is secured 
by a Laconian lock, with three bolts ; no 
longer is there meal, oil, and provisions 
ad libitum, by copying the impression of 
the signet-ring which sealed them up ; 
no longer can wine be stolen by a siphon, 
or meat purloined, and the blame laid on 
the cat. 3 Such homely touches are truly 
ludicrous illustrations of the state of soci- 
ety. Suspicion on one hand produced 
artifice on the other ; Attic love laughed at 
Laconian locksmiths ; the passion for dress, of course, kept pace with 
the love of conquest, and, as Athenian ladies were not remarkably 
handsome, they endeavoured to borrow from art the charms which 
nature had denied. Cosmetics, in which soot was an ingredient, 4 
were not unknown ; padded corsets rectified an irregular shape ; cork 
soles exalted a diminutive one. A lady's tradesmen 5 in Plautus (who Female 
copied Epicharmus) are alarmingly numerous : her toilette in Aris- extrava = 
tophanes is elegantly and expensively furnished. The former intro- 
duces Megadorus, urging, as a reason for marrying a girl without 
fortune, that " he shall not be asked, as he must if the wife brought a 

1 Thesm. 395, et seq ; 2 Ibid. 790. 3 Ibid. 559. 4 Alexis. 
5 The reader may like to see a scene on this subject from a comedy of Shirley, 
called The Lady of Pleasure : — 
Lady B. What charge more than is necessary for a lady of my birth and 
education ? 

B. Your charge of gaudy furniture and pictures ; 
Of this Italian master, and that Dutchman ; 
Your mighty looking-glasses, like artillery, 
Brought home on engines ; the superfluous plate, 
Antique and novel varieties of tires. 
Four-score pound suppers for my lord your kinsman ; 
Banquets for t'other lady-aunt and cousins ; 
And perfumes that exceed all : train of servants, 
To stifle us at home or show abroad, 
More motley than the French or the Venetian. 
Lady B. Have you done, sir ? 

B. I could accuse the gaiety of your wardrobe, 
And prodigal embroideries, under which 
Rich satins, plushes, cloth of silver, dare 
Not show their own complexion. Your jewels 
Able to burn out the spectator's eyes, 
And show like bonfires on you by the tapers. 




428 STATE OF FEMALE SOCIETY IN ATHENS. 

dowry, to find purple, gold ornaments, slaves, mules, mule-drivers, 
foot-boys, gentleman ushers, and a carriage. Then, there are the 
Athenian calenderer, the embroiderer, the goldsmith, the draper, the purple- 
trades.nen. gt u dded-tippet maker, the sempstress, the dyer in flame colour and 
violet, in yellow, wax colour, and purple : then, the makers of gowns 
with long sleeves, the perfumers of women's shoes, the hucksters, the 
linen-weavers, the haberdashers, makers of pattens, and of different 
sorts of sandals, of neckerchiefs, and girdles. Besides these, there are 
three hundred more duns in the hall ; clothiers, fringe-makers, uphol- 
sterers. These," continues the old man, " are some of the disadvan- 
tages of receiving in marriage a considerable dowry; these are its 
Grecian intolerable extravagancies." The description of a Grecian toilette, in 
toilette. a fragjngnt; f Aristophanes, is less intelligible, because it has not been 
illustrated by the writings of the Latin dramatists ; some parts, how- 
ever, of its apparatus are sufficiently plain ; its razors, mirrors, scissors, 
clasps, gems, rings, chains, seals, armlets, bracelets, ear-rings, various 
bands and garments, turbans, girdles, net-work fringes and veils, oint- 
ments, pumice-stone, and paint. Other articles, whether of ornament 
or use, still remain in the obscurity of the original language : sixteen 
hundred years ago, one 1 whose researches into antiquity were con- 
ducted with activity and skill, declared that of many of the terms it 
was hard to form any idea. If success was then difficult, it is hope- 
less now. Female commentators, had they existed, might have 
cleared up the mystery ; but, perhaps, it is true in all ages, that the 
general effect of female dress is all that the other sex are capable of 
appreciating aright: respecting its separate parts, they have less 
interest, and less knowledge, than its owners imagine or desire. The 
writer above mentioned has enumerated about ninety articles of female 
habiliments or female decorations. 2 A description so exact as to dis- 
criminate between these would be unnecessary, even if it were pos- 
sible ; for modern ladies need not have recourse to Athenian models 
for taste or elegance, and any suspicion of their talents for original 
invention would be at once ungenerous and unjust. 
1 Julius Pollux, lib. v. 16, 

a Bekker's Excursus on female dress is full, and illustrated with engravings. 
See also Athenseus, folio, p. 568. 



cm 

SECTION VI. 
JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 

The degree of curiosity and sympathy with which we examine the The 
social customs of past ages is chiefly regulated by two circumstances : ^e^ ia " f 
first, by their dissimilarity to the times in which we live ourselves ; female 
secondly, by the conviction of our own superior advantages impressed educatl0n 
by an impartial comparison. The latter condition interests our self- 
love in the inquiry ; and without the former, there is not a sufficient 
enlargement of our knowledge. There can be little doubt that the 
preceding investigation embraces both. There is a manifest inferiority worked ill for 
in the institutions of a selfish Athenian democracy, as they influence JappTn^ss 
the condition of female society. This point is so important, and con- 
stitutes so nearly a test of the progress of civilization, that a corre- 
sponding defect in other branches of social life might, with confidence, 
have been anticipated from antecedent probability, even if there had 
been less of direct evidence on the subject. The repetition of any 
such mischievous injustice is now rendered impossible by the advance- 
ment of intellect, by the amended state of law, and by refinement of 
manners. Beyond, and above all these, is the influence of a pure 
religion, which has prescribed to each sex its respective duties, and, 
where its direct tendencies are not checked by folly, vice, or ignorance, 
draws out from the arrangement of their opposite qualifications the 
harmony of social and domestic life. If, however, any one should so 
far cling to ancient prejudices as to doubt whether both parties are 
gainers by participating in the blessings of knowledge and the freedom 
of familiar intercourse, let him fully study in the Greek comedy the 
effects on the female character 1 of solitude, ignorance, and confinement. 



1 Compare the verses of Simonides on women with the matrimonial precepts or 
Naumachius. Com. Grace. Fragm. 94 and 122. 



430 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



Such details may be found, if they are sought impartially, where they 

are wisely left, in the obscurities of a learned language. 

In passing forward to a further examination of private life and 
manners among the Athenians, it is no easy task to discuss the subject 
with brevity, or arrange it with method. In modern times it is pro- 
verbially said, that one class of mankind knows not how another sub- 
sists; and though formerly there might not have been the same 
minute subdivisions in the graduated scale of society, nor were its 
extremes separated by so wide an interval, yet much of inequality and 
contrast 1 existed. Two heads of arrangement may be assumed with 
reference to the manners of the Athenians. First, their system of 
jurisprudence, as it illustrates the insecurity both of their property 
and their civil privileges ; secondly, their convivial habits, winch were 
combined with their social recreations. 




Athenian ^ e nmn b er2 °^ -Athenians who had votes in the general assembly 
system of has been computed at 20,000 ; the citizens, with their families, in all 
J dence rU " Attica, may be taken at 90,000 ; and the resident aliens at 45,000. 
« orked ill for Various circumstances will account for the singular fact, that the latter 
of property", amount to one-half of the free population. Those who had ability 
without money flocked to Athens, because every kind of active talent 
found there its level and its reward : those who had fortune without 
ability congregated at the same spot, because money bore a high rate 
of interest, circulated widely, and returned soon; twelve per cent, 
was the common premium, and three times that sum if the loan was 
risked by investment at sea. Capitalists, therefore, reaped a plentiful 
harvest ; merchants conducted an extensive system of commerce ; men 

1 Conon had 40 talents ; Nicias, 100. Hipponicus, who was called the richest 
of the Greeks, had not more than 200, = 38,000/. Demosthenes may be taken 
to represent the moderately rich : his father left him fourteen talents. Lysias says 
two boys, a girl, a nurse, and female servant, can live for eighteen oboli a-day. 

2 Conf. Athen. vi. 20, and Herod, v. 97 ; also Boeckh, toI. i. 52. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



431 



of taste, " amateurs of whatever is imposing in religious 1 spectacles," 
votaries of science, art, poetry, philosophy, or the drama, with its 
several appendages, painting, music, and dancing, all found occupation 
and encouragement at Athens. Sparta, even had she been willing to 
open her gates to strangers, had no such attractions, either for the 
man of business or the man of pleasure ; comparatively little foreign 
trade f few 3 public works to employ an alien population ; no orators, 
actors, or loquacious politicians, to entertain them : her civil institu- 
tions, also, must have been intolerable to any to whom they were not 
endeared by long habit and by national pride. In the inferior states, 
it is probable life was dull and subsistence difficult ; 4 hence the rest- 
less and adventurous spirits among their surplus inhabitants, combined 
with Lydians, Syrians, and Phrygians, to swell the labouring popu- Resident 
lation of Athens, to raise her public edifices, to carry on her manu- forei s ners 
factories, to serve in her armies, and to man her fleets. The line, 
however, drawn between them and the free citizens, was marked by 
distinctions sufficiently invidious : 5 each head of a family was com- 
pelled to pay a capitation tax of twelve drachmas, 6 and to choose 
some patron, under whose protection he was taken. When, also, at 
the Panathenaea, the Athenian damsels went in procession to the 
shrines and altars, the daughters of the resident foreigners attended 
them, with portable umbrellas and folding chairs. Under certain 
circumstances, their property and their persons might be sold ; and it 
is little creditable to the boasted hospitality of the Athenians, that 
they sometimes endeavoured to entrap their guests into a violation of 
the laws, that they might gratify their appetite for confiscation. 

'Besides this division of the residents into aliens and citizens, local Native 
habitation introduced another distinction among the free population of P°P ulat, ° 
Attica. The inhabitant of the plain was unlike the inhabitant of the 
highlands, in habits of life and general disposition. Both differed from 
those who dwelt on the shore ; and, before the establishment of the 
power of the Peisistratidse, each had made itself known as a political 
party, with its own leader, and its own views of civil government. 
These found their respective occupations in the business of agriculture, 7 
which included, besides the cultivation of the vine and olive, the care 

1 Xenoph. 

2 Of the trade of Sparta extremely little is known ; in fact, until a comparatively 
late period, it appears to have been inconsiderable, and to have been conducted in 
the rudest manner possible. (St. John, vol. iii. p. 259). The trade which mean- 
while was carried on by Laconia must have been at times very considerable. (Id. 
vol. iii. p. 268). See the whole chapter on the Commerce of the Doric States. 

3 evn truvotKitrfaiffYis ToXieo; cuts lst>o7$ xat X0l.ruffXiUCt.7s ToXuTlXlffl ■%QYitrcciJt,ivni. — 

Thucyd. i. 10. 

4 t>j 'EXXc/^t cravitf fth ui'i xori ffvvrgotp,:; hrr). — Herod, vii. 102. 

5 They might not take a part at the great Dionysia among the dramatic chorus, 
because these were, in a certain sense, the representatives of the nation. 

6 Menander in Harpos. : <rgo; tk7s luhxoe. A^a,x/u,«7s x-ou r^afioXov pi<rotxos <rtXi7. 

7 The proverb in Philemon gives it an unfavourable character : 'Aii ytu^yos ils 
nura nXouam. " The farmer's wealth is always to come." 



432 JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 

of cattle, especially sheep and goats ; in the fisheries ; in the quarries 
of Pentelicus and Hymettus ; and in the silver mines of Laurium. 1 
Of those who lived within the walls of the metropolis, many superin- 
tended their farms in the country. The Athenians, as a people, were 
fond of a rural life ; 2 its occupations suited their notions of a dignified 
liberty far better than either commerce or manufactures. These, 

Trade. however, flourished 3 in the hands of the resident foreigners. Athens 
was well known for its exportation of oil ; for its furniture and dress ; 
its tanners, lamp-makers, and cloth-weavers; its arms, and other 
metallic fabrics. The raw materials for the latter they imported from 
the Mediterranean coasts ; the Black Sea sent timber, slaves, salt fish, 
pickled provisions, honey, wax, tar, rigging, and leather; carpets 
were imported from Phrygia ; pottery from Chios ; supplies of corn 
arrived from Pontus, Egypt, Sicily, and especially from the Chersonesus 
Taurica, or modern Crimea. Every wind brought commodities from 
abroad; and those inconveniencies of barter which in other places 
incommoded merchants were unfelt at Athens, from the abundance, 
purity, and general currency of her coinage. In these, and various 
other branches of trade, as well as by manual labour, many of the 
inferior citizens gained their livelihood. Yet a certain stamp of 
degradation was set on them all by public opinion, insomuch, that a 
law was necessary to restrain the expression of it, and prevent mutual 
reproaches on this subject among those who were engaged in business. 
This kind of disrepute was founded on the principle, that every citizen 
should have leisure for affairs of state. But where the transactions of 
trade were conducted by agents, this objection had no weight. De- 
mosthenes inherited from his father a sword manufactory, worked by 
thirty slaves ; a bed manufactory ; stock in hand, consisting of iron, 
wood, and ivory ; and capital lent in business. Some derived their 
income from gangs of slaves, whom they let out like beasts of burthen. 
Nicias received a clear profit of a thousand oboli a day, for a thousand 
slaves who worked in the mines. Athenian idleness and vanity will- 
ingly transferred household duties to menials, and the occupations of 
trade to resident foreigners: the citizen might then frequent the 

Amusements general assembly, or the courts of law; he might talk politics, or 
make puns ; exercise himself in hunting, or at the gymnasium ; lounge 
by the Ilissus, or in the public groves and gardens, hearing and telling 
some new thing ; indulge at the baths the protracted enjoyments of 
the steaming-rooms and anointing-rooms, or study the fine arts amidst 
the models of statuary and painting which ornamented the porticoes of 

1 ....... . kgyvoov 

tfnyh ri$ aurois itrr) 6nffa,vgo? %0ovo?. 

Msg. Pers. 235. 

" They have a fountain of silver, a treasure in their own land." See also a frag- 
ment of Aristophanes in Stohseus, oiKtiv h wygu rourov. 

2 Thuc. ii. 22. 

3 See St. John on Attic Commerce, vol. iii. ch. ix. ; Boeckh, and Grote, vol. v. 
chap. xlvi. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



433 



the city. If to these tastes be added the cheerfulness of habitual 
conviviality, and a passion for dramatic entertainments, they complete 
the picture of that social life which was at once dignified and agree- 
able. 1 

But it was no easy task to place such leisure, and such recreations state 
of idleness, within reach of those whose means were inadequate to donatlons 
their ordinary daily maintenance. In a democracy, however, there are 
rarely wanting orators to propose, or assemblies to carry, any measures 
which procure immediate gratification to the multitude. Accordingly, 
the state collectively paid to its citizens individually two oboli a head 
as entrance-money to the theatre ; this sum, called theoricon, was 
received by persons of high rank in the age of Demosthenes, though, 
at first, they disdained this, as well as other donations. The theo- 
ricon was distributed also at the Panathsensea and all the great festivals 
(tepop/Wcu) ; probably eight thousand persons received it. Besides 
this, each citizen who attended the Ecclesia, or public assembly, to the 
received three oboli about fifty days in every year ; and every member eccles . iast s 

j j j j 7 j and diccists. 

of the (3ov\rj, or senate, a drachma a-day about three hundred days in 
every year ; and, further, almost one-third of the freemen of Athens 
received, by law, daily pay from the public treasury for attending the 
courts of justice, in the capacity of dicasts, or jurymen. 2 The stipend, 
introduced first by Pericles, was one obolus a day ; it was afterwards 
raised to three, probably by Cleon, 3 and then it amounted to about 
three-fourths of a common labourer's pay. This regularly-appointed 
remuneration formed an important share of the maintenance of those 
who received it. Its direct tendency, and its actual result, was to 
keep them idle, and to make them litigious ; 4 unlawful profits also 
came to them through the channel of corruption ; 5 and it is manifest 
that, as the number of the judges varied in particular trials from two 
hundred to two thousand, each individual must have felt his own 
responsibility lessened : defendit numerus was a fact before it was a 
proverbial saying. This was a change from oligarchic to democratic 

1 " Some persons complain that a man often waits a twelvemonth at Athens before 
he can obtain an audience of the senate or of the popular assembly : how could it 
be otherwise, when there are more feasts and holidays at Athens than in any other 
Greek city, during which it is not easy to attend to affairs of state ; and they have 

;ore actions, prosecutions, and scrutinies of magistrates' accounts than all the rest 
f Greece put together? (Kennedy's Dem. from Xenoph.) The citizens themselves, 

ith their numerous festivals and amusements, public and private, evidently de- 
r oted a far greater proportion of their time to pleasure than would now be possible 
o any save the opulent." (St. John, vol. iii. ch. ix.) 

2 Boeckh, vol. i. p. 302. Mr. Grote says this calculation is exaggerated. Vol. v. 
h. xlvi. 

3 Ar. Eq. 51 and 256. 4 Isoc. de Pace, ad fin. 

5 Money, says Philemon, is the real Amalthaea's horn— the horn of plenty : — if 
ou have that, you may have everything — friends, partisans, witnesses, guests : among 
ankind integrity is all smoke. (Stobseus, Flor. 91.) Money, says Menander, 
ill furnish all you wish — land, houses, servants, plate, friends, jurymen QiKaffruV), 
itnesses (Menander, Fragm. 151, p. 242) — only fork out, povov I'ttov. 
[H. G.] 2 F 



434: JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 

judicial functions, and each system has found its advocates. Mitford 
and Grote are at issue; the former prefers that social condition in 
which trials were determined by the Areopagus, or various magis- 
trates of the wealthier class, and finds the new plan fraught with reck- 
less injustice, bribery, and intimidation. Grote defends the change, 
General state and says these large assemblies of di casts " are nothing but jury-trial, 
of society applied on a scale, broad, systematic, unaided, and uncontrolled, beyond 
all other historical experience, and that they therefore exhibit, in exag- 
gerated proportions, both the excellencies and the defects characteristic 
of the jury-system, as compared with decision by trained and profes- 
sional judges." 1 At all events, judicial functions, supplying both 
employment and excitement, almost daily, to a large proportion of the 
citizens, must have been the cause, as well as the effect, of a litigious 
spirit ; and this spirit was stimulated by that jealousy and suspicion 
which are the inherent faults of a democratic government : accordingly, 
offences having been divided into two classes — first, those against 
individuals ; secondly, those against the state — in the latter case, any 
citizen whatsoever was not only empowered to prosecute, but encou- 
raged to do so, by the fact that his civil rights generally made him 
also a member of a judicial tribunal. That class, too, was extended 
so far, that many acts, which modem law would treat only as private 
offences, were accounted political crimes. Now, however accurate the 
list might nominally be of offences against the state, still many of them 
must be indefinite in their nature, and therefore the ingenuity of 
informers might easily contrive accusations. When Mantitheus, in 
one of the speeches of Lysias, urges in his own favour that he had 
never been tried in a court of law before, this commendation is not so 
slight as, at first sight, it might appear. 2 Probably, many an honest 
litigious and man had not the same discretion, or the same good fortune, as Manti- 
dishonest. theus, in a city which abounded, according to the testimony of Theo- 
pompus, with robbers, false witnesses, sycophants, and lying informers. 
These public nuisances were, however, instrumental in making business 
for the courts of law, whose members found their interest in prosecu- 
tions, whether the accused were innocent or guilty. In the former 
case, they were paid as dicasts ; in the latter, they might also occa- 
sionally hope to share in the public confiscation of his property. Had 
the general feeling set as strongly against informers as it does now, 
complaints would not have been so frequent in the Greek orators of 
their artifices, their power, and their numbers. Had they not plied 
their trade with mischievous and successful activity, a private Athenian 
gentleman would not have made it a part of his home-occupation to 
practise the art of speaking, in order that he might be a match for 
them. For example, the cry of " no tyranny " 3 was easily raised at 

1 Hist. Greece, vol. v. 317. 

2 Aristophon, towards the close of his political life, made it a boast that he had 
been thus indicted and acquitted seventy-five times. Grote, vol. v. p. 508. 

3 VespEe, 488. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



435 



any time ; or an accusation, which implied debt to the public, was 
contrived without difficulty, and received without reluctance. Indeed, 
it must have been the frequency of frivolous or vexatious lawsuits 
which suggested that regulation by which a prosecutor, who failed to 
obtain a fifth part of the suffrages, was heavily fined himself. 

Nor is it difficult to account for this state of things, upon the prin- Dicasts and 
ciple that, between these pestilent excrescences of a corrupt society informers 
and the whole body of Athenian dicasts, there existed a certain com- 
munity of interests. Six thousand of the latter were chosen annually 
to sit on the tribunals, of which, under the general name of Helisea, 
four took cognizance of criminal, and six of civil, offences. To these 
courts, every citizen above a certain age was eligible ; the number of 
those who were occupied in any one cause varied from five hundred 
to two thousand. Festivals occupied about one-sixth part of the 
Athenian year ; but, on all other days, business was transacted in the 
Helisea, and when the assembly dispersed, each dicast received three 
oboli. Thus, one-third of the citizens partly subsisted on litigation ; 
and, as the jackal is said to provide for the king of the beasts, so 
informers, equally savage, and equally sagacious, purveyed for their 
majesty the people. The orators did, indeed, pursue them with the 
severity of eloquent indignation ; the comic stage attacked them with 
its raillery ; but, under all circumstances, whether in poverty or in 
wealth, prosecutors or defendants, acquitted or condemned, they were 
useful to a considerable portion of the community, and therefore they 
flourished. Poverty was a stimulus to their exertions : in affluence preyed on 
they were assailed 1 by their own artifices ; if they were acquitted, the the P eo P le - 
jury shared their profits in the way of bribery; if they were con- 
demned, in the way of confiscation. With this consciousness of his 
own utility, the informer of the old comedy 2 takes high ground. He 
is, according to his own description, a patriot, as well as a man of 
character ; not, indeed, with any ostensible occupation ; not a mer- 
chant, for example, or an agriculturist ; but still he does business with 
the state, and with individuals : his enemies may call him a busybody 
and sycophant, but he is, in fact, a public benefactor, anxious for the 
preservation of justice, awake to every violation of it, and quick to 
bring his case before the dicasts. When he is pressed with this 
question, whether the dicasts themselves are not appointed by the city 
to exercise these powers, his reply illustrates the connection which 
existed between the parties respectively — what is a jury without a 
prosecutor? This, then, is my vocation ; and without such an excite- 
ment, leisure, ease, and opulence, would be mere animal existence. 
Another of these gentry appears in the imaginary city of the birds ; 3 
he requests wings, that he may conduct his business with more 
rapidity — an old-established business, transmitted even from his grand- 
father. He will poise his flight with lawsuits, he will cite the distant 

1 Xen. Mem. ii. 9. 2 Plutus, 900 to 925. 

3 Aves, 1420 to 1461. 

2 F 2 



436 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



stranger, secure his condemnation before his arrival, and then seize 
his property with the rapidity of a whirlwind. A third sketch of 
the same character, by the hand of the same artist, is to be found in 
denounced ^ e Acharnenses. 1 A Boeotian arrives anxious to exchange his wares 
bythecomic for some of the staple commodities of Athens ; he is advised to export 
writers, an informer ; one of the fraternity is soon at hand, threatening to 
denounce the stranger for importing candlewieks, which might burn 
down the arsenal. Whereupon the sycophant is seized and carried off, 
swathed up in matting, like an earthen vessel, in which, cracked as it 
is, lawsuits may yet be stirred up, and mischief still be mixed. 

While comedy thus poured its ridicule and contempt on the 
species, oratory, as it came more in contact with the business of real 
life, concentrated its powers of invective upon the individual. " There 
by Demo- are altogether," says Demosthenes, 2 " about twenty thousand Athe- 
sthenes, nians, of whom each one frequents the agora, having some business or 
other, public or private. Not so this man. He can point to no occu- 
pation honourable, decent, or advantageous to the public, in which his 
life and thoughts are employed. He attends not to trade, agriculture, 
or any other profession ; he shares no intercourse or kindly feeling 
with any one, but he passes through the agora like a serpent or a 
scorpion, having erected his sting, leaping here and there, watching 
whom he can so far alarm, by fear of mischief, by foul language, or by 
any other annoyance, as to exact money. Not one of the perfumer's, 
barber's, or other shops in the city does he approach, but friendless, 
homeless, and unsociable, without gratitude, affection, or any other 
feeling of a respectable man ; his are the companions which painters 
assign to the impious in hell — Imprecation, Blasphemy, Envy, Sedi- 
tion, and Strife. This monster, then, you should exile, cast from the 
city, and cut off, preventing any public misfortune by this precaution- 
ary measure." 3 

and by Such is the language which oratory employed to expose the cha- 

piutarch. rac t er of informers ; how far they deserved it may be conjectured 
from a passage in Plutarch, where, having mentioned the riches of 
Nicias, he adds, " wherefore, there were around him no inconsiderable 
number, who begged and shared his bounty. For he distributed as 
much to those who could do him injury, as to those who deserved 
assistance ; his timidity was a revenue to the wicked, and his kind- 
heartedness to the good." Now, the exercise of that influence which 
is here implied, does, in its various bearings, shed far more light on 
private manners, on the condition of social life, and on that part of 
national character which is drawn out in the intercourse of man with 
man, than the corresponding circumstances in modern times. A very 
small proportion of the community is now connected with the civil or 
the criminal courts of law ; whereas, in Athens, one-third part of the 
citizens sat as jurymen ; their temper and general character may be 
traced in the speeches which were addressed to them ; and the power 
1 Achar. 899 to 940. 2 Dem. Wolf. p. 836. 3 Dem. Wolf. p. 842. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



437 



of the sycophants depended, first, on the facility with which prosecu- 
tions might be legally instituted, and secondly, on the disposition with 
which this assembly received them. 

It has been already mentioned, that in case of certain offences, 
which were supposed to be against the state, any individual might 
bring forward the charge. The law of treason was worded with a 
tremendous latitude of expression, which caprice, suspicion, cunning, 
or avarice, might easily pervert to purposes of oppression. Before 1 
the council hall stood a column, on which was engraved, " Whoever 
shall overthrow the democracy, or hold any magistracy in Athens, 
when the democracy shall be overthrown, may be lawfully killed by 
any one ; the person killing him shall be held holy before the gods, 
and meritorious among men, and shall be rewarded with the whole 
property of the person killed." Now, a suspicion that the democracy 
was about to be dissolved was easily excited at Athens. Alcibiades 
incurred it just before the memorable expedition against Sicily ; and 
its origin and progress are proofs of the inroads which might be made 
by popular jealousy on the constitution of social life, and of the insecure 
tenure by which civil privileges were held. 

It happened that some young men, in a drunken frolic one night, state trials, 
mutilated the stone images of Hermes, with which the streets of 
Athens were ornamented. Superstitious feeling magnified the matter ; 
Alcibiades was accused of being concerned in it, and also of a profane 
imitation of some of the sacred mysteries of religion. Immediately a Alcibiades 
cry was raised, that the democracy was in danger. At first there was j^f^y d of 
nothing against him but slight suspicions, and the testimony of slaves 
and resident foreigners. He was on the point of sailing with the 
fleet ; in vain he demanded an immediate trial ; in vain he urged the 
imprudence, as well as the injustice, of placing him over such a host, 
before this imputation was either verified or refuted. The party, 
however, whose political ascendency he had prevented, procured an 
order for his immediate departure, " by means of orators who were 
not reputed to be Ins enemies, but hated 2 him as heartily as the most 
professed ones ; being desirous to have him home for trial upon a 
greater stock of false accusations, with which they could more easily 
provide themselves in his absence." 3 The fleet accordingly sailed ; 
and the people, mindful of the ancient tyranny of the Peisistratidse, 
" received, in their jealousy, all testimony without discrimination, 
arresting most respectable citizens through their confidence in wicked 
men, and choosing to try the affair to the bottom, rather than that 
any one, although of good reputation, who had been accused by the 
villany of informers, should escape unquestioned." 4 Thus popular 
feeling became more fierce, and imprisonments more numerous ; till 
at length, one of the victims imprisoned was persuaded to accuse 
himself and others, on the ground that, even though he were not 

1 Mitford, ch. xxi. s. 1. 2 Plut. in Alcib. 

3 Thucyd. vi. 29. 4 Thucyd. vi. 53. 



438 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



guilty, confession was safer than a trial. Accordingly, he himself 
escaped with his life ; of those whom he denounced, some were 
executed, and a price was set on the head of those who fled. Thucy- 
dides closes his account of the transaction with this remark : — " In 
this matter, whether the sufferers were punished unjustly is uncertain ; 
however, under existing circumstances, the rest of the city were very 
manifestly benefited." 1 Unknown at Athens was the just and humane 
maxim on which must depend all confidence in civil institutions, 
" better is it that ten guilty should escape, than that one innocent 
person should suffer." 
punishments Thus vague was the law of treason, and thus suspicious and unjust 
was the spirit occasionally shown in its application. Other parts of 
the code had their own severity; degradation might suspend or 
destroy the various rights of citizenship ; imprisonment might be 
inflicted for life ; banishment was either temporary or perpetual ; 
offences against religion, treachery in war, murder, some kinds of 
robbery, and peculation, were punished by the sword or poison ; by 
strangling or drowning : in many cases, confiscation of the delinquent's 
property followed; and thus another wide avenue was opened for 
falsehood on the part of the informers, and oppression on the part of 
the public. This sentence, whether deserved or undeserved, was, in 
its execution, often attended with most flagrant injustice. If, for 
example, the ministers of this legal spoliation were so far disappointed 
as to find less booty than they expected, they came upon the connec- 
tions of the defaulter to make up the deficiency. Ergocles was con- 
victed of having embezzled thirty talents; and, because they could 
not be found, this sum was claimed from his friend Philocrates. The 
orator who pleaded against the latter, says, " He has only two modes 
of establishing his innocence ; either let him prove that Ergocles did 
not plunder the public at all, or that some one else has got the money ; 
for if we do not find it among his friends, we shall hardly find it 
among his enemies." If this accusation is curious, the defence is not 
less so. Philocrates suborns persons to testify, that so far from being 
the friend of Ergocles, he was his greatest enemy,— and this was not 
difficult in a city where figs 2 and false witnesses were equally plentiful. 
The whole speech lays open a strange scene of iniquity : the party of 
Ergocles openly declared they had bribed 2100 jurymen in the Piraeus, 
and in the city ; he gave the public orators 3 three talents not to appear 
against him, but when they saw that the temper of the people was 
disposed to punish him, they dared not perform their promise ; still 
they kept the bribe, nor would they refund without a threat of pro- 
secution. On another occasion, Aristophanes and Nicophemus, father 
and son, were imprisoned and destroyed ; the state seized their pro- 
perty, and, because it was less than w 7 as expected, the widow of the 

1 Lib. yi. 60. 2 Theopompus in Athenseus, lib. vi. 16. 

3 See a fragment of Timocles in Athen. lib. viii. beginning Aypoffdivvs rdXavTU 



Bribery and 
corruption 
of the law 
courts. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



439 



brother of Aristophanes was prosecuted. Lysias conducted the 
defence, and he brings forward a case in point, which shows how little 
security there was, either for reputation, property, or life. " You 
know," says he, " there was a report in the general assembly, that 
Diotimus had received abroad, from the merchants, forty talents more 
than he acknowledged. When he came home and complained of the 
calumny, and was ready to pass his accounts, no one proved the 
charge, though the state wanted money; but suppose he had died 
abroad while this rumour still prevailed, his relations would have Private 
been in the greatest danger, obliged to answer to this calumny, and ^nger m 
knowing nothing of the circumstances ; and thus it is, bold, avaricious 
informers frequently deceive you, and some perish unjustly." 1 

Nor let it be supposed, that liability to oppression and calumny 
was only a tax, which men paid for the distinctions of public life. 
" Where vice prevails, and wicked men bear sway, the post of honour 
is a private station ;" but, in Athens, no station was so private as to 
escape vexatious interference, and the demands of extortion. The 
rich were hated by the poor ; and the law placed in the hands of the 
latter a power of espionage and inquisition, that made it questionable 
which station of the two was the more desirable. Charmides, who 
had tried both, determined in favour of poverty. 2 " When I was 
rich," says he, "I feared some one would dig through my walls, steal 
my money, and ill-treat me. I courted the sycophants, knowing they 
could injure me more than I could injure them. Besides, there was 
for ever an order 3 for me to spend something for the city, nor could I 
go abroad ; whereas now, since I am deprived of my estates beyond from 
the frontiers, and reap no profit from those within, and all I have at Nation? ^ 
home is sold, I stretch myself at my ease to sleep, and am one in 
whom the state confides ; I threaten others, instead of being menaced 
myself ; I may go away or stay at home, like a free man ; the rich 
give me the wall, and the seat of honour ; now I am like a king, then I 
was manifestly a slave ; then I paid tribute to the people, now the city 
supports me ; then I was always losing something, either by accident 
or by the state ; now I lose nothing, but am always expecting to gain." 4 

1 Keiske, p. 655. 2 See also Philemon, Fragm. 39. 

3 V\ yo\(> iitrtpofia Tig %gvrxxs 

TOtvbofav -PTCiVT ») VlK-/) <7Clgl'7t%0'WV OCyfCukiTO, 

n <rr^a,TviyYitrug TgotrrwQkiv n ■x^o^nyog a.\^i6iig 
if/.a.rtoc, •xgvaa. fttt.ga.o"x, u ' i tu> ^ogu) pctxog cpo^it, 
91 Tgl'/)/>U(>X,6>V u,9tny\ot.T . 

In a word, as Antiphanes adds, an Athenian was sure of only one thing — his dinner 
after he had eaten it. (Walp. Com. 12.) 

ct\X' orav <rr,v 'ivfatrtv 

tvTog JjSjj twv oVovreav Tvyx&vn xoirttrfaxcug 

TOUT IVl&fffpctXu VOfAl^i TUV UTTtC^XOVTUV {AOVO. 

For either some tax swept away all one had, or a man is ruined by a lawsuit, or 
incurs new debts as strategus (general) ; or, from furnishing gilded garments for a 
chorus, he goes in rags ; or, being appointed trierarch, he hangs himself. 
4 Xenoph. Conviv. 



440 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



The inconveniences which are here said to be connected with the 
possession of wealth, may be elucidated by a brief statement of some 
parts of the public expenditure, and of the source whence this expendi- 
ture was defrayed. 

Recreations The state services were numerous and extravagant : the war and 
of the people, p eace establishments of the first naval power in Greece were necessarily 
great. It has been shown that the law department was costly : the 
members of the council of five hundred received, during ten months, 
a drachma a day, and those who attended the general assembly, 
perhaps amounting to five 1 thousand, received three oboli a day, about 
fifty days in each year. 2 But, beyond these expenses of political 
business, immense sums were lavished on national amusements. 
Thirty days in the year, about eight thousand citizens received two 
oboli a-piece, as entrance money to the theatres. This luxury was 
paid for by essential to the happiness of the people ; insomuch, that death was 
the state, denounced against any one who should propose the application of these 
funds to the war department, however pressing its exigencies might 
be. Festivals occupied two months, in which, beside plays and pro- 
cessions, with their flutists, lyrists, rhapsodists, dancers, and gym- 
nastic exercises, (all of which were costly appendages,) there were 
distributions of money, com, and the flesh of sacrificed victims. 3 




either from To meet these various charges, the state derived a revenue from 
ta^ef eneral mines > houses, and lands — from a tax of the twenty- fourth part of the 
silver mines, worked by individuals — from an impost on freedmen and 
resident foreigners — from confiscation — and from duties on mer- 
chandise. Application was sometimes made to the general assembly 

1 Thuc. viii. 72. 2 Boeckh. 

3 Boeckh says, " The skins alone, for seven months, amounted, in the 111th 
Olympiad, to 5,148 drachmas." _ 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



441 



to subscribe a benevolence for the public necessities, and a certain tax 
was paid by the ten tribes. These sources, however, were inadequate, or by special 
and a great burthen of expense was therefore thrown on a few wealthy JKch 011 
citizens. At one time, these amounted to three hundred ; l at another, ten 
classes were made, each containing one hundred and twenty persons, of 
those possessing land, manufactories, or money in trade ; and this whole 
body was divided into two portions, one of which furnished its contin- 
gent every alternate year. This taxation was inflicted, not as a definite 
sum, but in the shape of an order to perform such public services as 
the equipment of a trireme, — the appointment of a chorus for the 
tragic or the comic stage, — the exhibition of a military dance or 
musical entertainment, — or a public supper to a district. Of those, 
however, who were thus chosen, any one might escape the impost, 2 
provided he could find a substitute who was better able to bear it. 
The person thus cited was obliged by law either to take the place of 
the other in the list of contributors, or to exchange fortunes with him. 
From this system sprung much active zeal ; one party endeavouring to 
discover property, the other to conceal it, while the informers thrived 
at the expense of both. " All the jury," says Isocrates, when he was 
himself subjected to this pecuniary challenge, " all the jury should 
exercise that sort of judgment which they would themselves expect to 
receive ; reflecting that, owing to the impudence of sycophants, it is 
uncertain who may be placed in this danger, and compelled to plead, 
as I do now, before those who are to pass their votes upon him." 
These public duties were, indeed, beset by considerable difficulties : 
if they were discharged expensively, they brought private embarrass- 
ment ; if frugally, public unpopularity. Thus Socrates tells one of his 
opulent young friends, that the state will make him expend much in 
rearing horses, in sacrifices, in receiving strangers and feasting the 
citizens, in choruses and gymnastic exercises, in naval charges, " and 
such contributions as you will not easily bear ; and if you do any of 
these scantily, the Athenians will punish you as if you had stolen 
some of their property." 3 In one of the orations also of Lysias, after 
a long enumeration of similar public services, with their respective 
cost, the speaker adds, that had they been performed merely according 
to the letter of the law, a fourth part of the expense would have 
sufficed. 

From the preceding observations, it will have appeared, that the Precarious 
people, whose political freedom was their perpetual boast, held indi- Athenian 
vidually the blessings of this very liberty by a slender and precarious freedora - 
tenure. It has been seen, that, with reference to treason, peculation, 
and the public services, the law afforded, and the informers employed, 

1 Libanius, Praefat. to Isocrat. de Permut. 

2 The casuist quoted by Paschal says, "Quand on voit un voleur resolu et pret 
a voler une personne pauvre, on peut pour Pen detourner lui assigner quelque per- 
sonne riche en particulier, pour le voler au lieu de l'autre." Lettres Prov. ii. 459. 

3 Xenoph. Mem. 



442 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



Athenian 
lawsuits. 



Preliminary 
forms of a 
lawsuit. 



The jury 
sworn against 
bribery, 



yet openly 
practised it. 



The 

Athenian 



such power as endangered the security of life, property, and reputation. 
The temper with which these and other charges were received by the 
judicial assembly, may be learnt from the Greek orators ; they, of 
course, knew well the disposition of their audience, and what line of 
argument was likely to bear upon it effectively. The constant success 
which attended Lysias, makes his speeches very important, as illus- 
trations of national character; for the jury whom he addressed were 
not so much representatives of the nation as the nation itself. To this 
subject, then, with this view, inquiry shall now be directed, after a 
few preliminary observations on the technical management of an 
Athenian lawsuit, and a picture of an Athenian dicast, from the comic 
pencil of Aristophanes. 

As the archons were, in virtue of their office, presidents of the 
court of judicature, any application from an injured party was first 
made to some one of the body. If he thought an action would lie, 
the plaintiff cited the defendant ; the matter in question was then 
discussed ; each party made oath that his cause was just. A sum of 
money was deposited by the plaintiff as a pledge that he would con- 
tinue the suit, which sum went to the jurymen 1 if he failed; the 
various depositions and documents were then placed in a vessel, in 
which they were carried into court. There the jury swore that they 
would never accept, directly or indirectly, a reward for pronouncing 
their sentence, nor willingly suffer any of their fellows to be influenced 
by any artifice whatsoever : nor refuse 2 impartial attention, either to 
the plaintiff or the defendant. The parties brought with them as 
many friends as they could ; their speeches were often composed by 
some of the professed rhetoricians; a practice which is said to have- 
originated with Isocrates," and which Demosthenes did not disdain. 
The length of these was determined by the archon, according to the 
nature of the cause, and measured by a clepsydra, or water-clock. 

Vain, however, were all the precautions used to secure honourable 
conduct in these Athenian dicasts, who were judges of the law as well 
as of the fact, though a scrutiny preceded their admission to the office, 
and the solemnities of an oath attended it. iEschines accuses them 
of habitual inattention to the proceedings ; and the spot where stood 
the statue of Lycus, was as notorious for the negotiations of bribery as 
were the porticoes of the Piraeus for mercantile transactions. But their 
character is to be learnt most fully from the comedy of The Wasps, 
whose stings were no insignificant emblems of the author's meaning. 
It must be remembered, that the originals of these dramatic characters 
were the very audience before whom they were produced ; a fact, 
which is at once a proof of the author's boldness, and a pledge of the 
fidelity of the representation. 

The apparatus of the Athenian dicast was very simple ; a cloak in 
which he enveloped himself, a few beans, by means of which he gave 
his vote, a tablet which entitled him to his pay, and a staff, which 
1 Schol. on iEschin. 2 Isoc. de Permut. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



443 



directed him to the court, where he was to take his seat. There he ^J^jJ^ e ' d 
sticks, with the tenacity of bark; thither he repairs at early dawn, Zthe" e 
after dreams of coming litigation. 1 That any defendant should be JJjJJ^j^g, 
acquitted, would cost him at least a fever, if not his life. 8 Persuasion 
could no more mitigate his severity, than the art of cookery could 
mollify a stone ; a t not skate nor eels are so dear to him for dinner as a 
little dish of hot lawsuits. 4 His invocation is to the god of bribery. 
What character is so enviable, what station so luxurious, as the 
dicast's ? what so gratifying as his power and his privileges ? The 
attentive salutations of the great, their obsequious 5 services, the pres- 
sure of some gentle hand which has ere now filled itself from the 
public treasury, awakening in the dicast a compassionate fellow- 
feeling, by reminding him of his own past peculations, — the promises 
which are made and broken, — the entreaties addressed to his pity, — 
the melancholy spectacle of a son's lamentation, — the tempting offer 
of a daughter's honour, — the wit that is employed to disarm his 
anger, — the opportunities, moreover, of altering a will, and thus dis- 
posing of an heiress to the highest bidder, — the impunity, 6 too, of 
these proceedings and their daily pay, — the ready money he carries 
home, — and the caresses, 7 conjugal and filial, which are bestowed in 
consequence. Such is the dicast's public importance, and such his 
domestic happiness. The remainder of the play is in a strain of still 
broader drollery. The public functionary admits there are some 
inconveniencies connected with his station, which it is proposed to 
remedy, by establishing for himself a little court of justice in his own 
house. There he can officiate and eat lentils at the same time ; sick- 
ness will not suspend his pay ; if he falls asleep during the defendant's 
speech, 8 his own domestic chanticleer will wake him. The statue of 
Lycus completes the establishment. The first offender brought before 
the court is a dog for stealing a cheese ; his canine companion pro- ' 
secutes, and complains loudly that he received no share 9 of the stolen 
property. With difficulty can the dicast be persuaded 10 to hear the 
other side : the witnesses called by the president are, the dish, the 
pestle, and the cheeseknife. In vain are pleaded the services of the 
defendant, in watching the house and fold ; in vain his puppies are 
produced in court, weeping and whining to extort compassion. The 
dicast's habitual severity prevails, and it is only by his unintentionally 
dropping his vote into the wrong box, that the culprit is acquitted. 11 

What now are the dark spots of the Athenian character which are Courts of 
suffered to appear through this veil of comic raillery, — like things law * 
" neither rich nor rare," preserved in transparent amber? They are 
plainly these — that the dicast, while he was discharging an office of 

» Ar. Vesp. 93. » Ib> 160> 3 ib. 280. 

4 Ib. 511. 5 Ib. 597. 6 lb. 587. 

7 Ib. 606. 8 Ib. 816. 9 Ib. 914. 10 Ib. 919. 

11 Xenophon mentions interest, entreaty, and flattery, as customary causes of ac- 
quittal by the dicasts. Mem. iv. 4. 



444 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



much solemnity as a moral obligation, and much importance as a 
civil institution, was habitually swayed by his own interest; the 
justice or injustice of the case before him, and the truth or falsehood 
of the testimony adduced, having little influence on its decision. The 
imputation thus cast upon him by the sportive humour of the stage 
The Greek is justified by the real pleadings of the bar. The remains of the 
Greek orators are, indeed, the mirror of their age ; and if the image 
they reflect is unsightly, it is because the very form and features of 
justice are distorted. They found their audience alive to all the graces 
of style, and easily swayed by the force of eloquence ; and, instead 1 
of employing their transcendent talents to correct public opinion and 
elevate national character, they fattened on the corruption of both by 
falsehood and by flattery. They addressed their hearers as the repre- 
sentatives of equity and law, which, nevertheless, they might alter or 
prove the apply in any way they pleased. " You ought," says Lysias, 2 " to 
SrGr£k eSS ^ e * n tnis case not om 3 7 j u( ^g es ' but legislators ; for whatever decision 
judges. you shall pass now will henceforth be a precedent ; and I think a 
good citizen and a just juryman ought to handle the laws in such a 
way as may hereafter be advantageous to the state." As prosecutors, 
these pleaders scrupled not to avow the motives of personal resent- 
ment, or to produce facts altogether irrelevant to the matter in hand, 
if they were likely to tell upon the feelings of the audience. 3 As 
defendants, their apologies related little to the circumstances of the 
case, turning chiefly on past services to the state, which might 
establish a claim on the gratitude of the jury, or on promises of such 
future exertions as may excite their hopes. Or, if it suited their 
purpose better, they would themselves condemn these artifices ; thus 
recognising their existence, while they disclaim their use. " It is 
customary," says Lysias, 4 " to make no defence as to the matter of 
the prosecution, but they mislead you by narrations respecting other 
matters of their own ; their gallantry as soldiers, or their victories as 
commanders of galleys, or their skill in gaining the friendship of 
hostile cities." Again, " Yet we see you, oh judges ! if one presents you 
his children, with tears and lamentation, pitying the disgrace which 
condemnation would entail on himself and his offspring, and remitting 
the punishment on their account, though you know not whether, in 
their manhood, they will prove good citizens or bad." Now, since it 
is the effect of such pleadings as these, which makes them a faithful 
index of the character of the hearers, it is fit the subject should be 
first illustrated from the speeches of one who was, when he pleased, 

1 Isocrat. de Pace. 2 In Alcib. 

s We must not forget that all this intemperance of language, all this bitter in- 
vective, which occur in the Attic speeches, was not poured out in the wrath or 
excitement of the moment, but was the artful composition of the pleader, calmly 
reflecting on the circumstances of the case, and judging, from his experience of 
human nature, what were the topics most advantageous to be urged. Kennedy, 
Dem. Pref. 4 In Eratosth. 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



445 



among the most successful in their application. The oration 1 against The 
the son of the great Alcibiades, exemplifies the open avowal of Jft e ^f mgs 
motives of personal resentment, where no such feelings ought to have j"^™"*^ 
found admission, the indiscriminate severity of the penal law of under trial? 
Athens, and the introduction of matter, totally irrelevant to the merits 
of the case. " I, oh jurymen !" says the prosecutor, " thinking this man 
my private enemy, and now having by him been injured — enmity, 
moreover, having existed formerly between his father and mine, — 
will endeavour, with your assistance, to avenge myself upon him for 
all his deeds." And what was the cause in question ? it related to a 
point of military discipline, namely, that when the defendant was 
ordered to serve in the heavy-armed infantry, he joined the cavalry. 
Upon this, a case apparently so unconnected with any considerations 
of a personal character, not only are the immoralities of his own life 
brought forward, but also the political treacheries of his father, — the 
invasion of Attica by the latter, and the suggesting to the Lacedae- 
monians the plan of fortifying Decelea, — from all which circumstances, 
the orator concludes, " wherefore, it behoves both you and all future 
judges to punish any of the family whom you can apprehend." From 
another speech of Lysias, it appears how little reliance a defendant 
could safely place on the facts of his case, however favourable, even 
though the Areopagus were the court in which it was to be tried. 
The accusation relates to the destruction of a sacred olive-tree : to 
refute this, not only is the charge shown to be in its details utterly 
improbable and absurd, but it is proved by the testimony of successive 
tenants of the land, that the tree or stump named in the indictment 
never existed at all. But even this fact does not dispense with the 
necessity of humble supplication. " I should be the most wretched 
of men if I shall have been unjustly made an exile, childless and 
solitary,' — my family desolate, my mother destitute, and myself 
deprived, by the basest accusations, of my country, for which I have 
so often fought by sea and land." Such a suppliant evidently despairs 
of obtaining from the justice of his judges, that merited acquittal 
which, by this appeal, he endeavours to procure from their com- 
passion. 

From the character, however, of the Athenian dicast, an address to 
his pity was not likely to be so effectual as an address to his interest. 
Accordingly, one accused of bribery and dreading confiscation, having 
enumerated his various expenses incurred for the state, adds, " You 
ought to consider this the most certain public income, — the property 
of those who are willing to undertake the cost of liturgies : you will 
then take as much care of my property, if you are wise, as of your 
own, knowing that you will still have the use of it as you have had. 
I suppose you all know I shall take better care of my fortune for you 
than those who manage the affairs of the city ; if you make me poor, 

1 Lysias^ Reiske, 519, 



446 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



a^unfof y ou W ^ i n j ure yourselves." What the nature was, and what the 
public expenses were, of these liturgies, may be learned from one who thus 
liturgies. states the share he had borne in this species of taxation, which was 
laid on the wealthy citizens. " In superintending the tragic chorus, I 
spent thirty minae : on the dances for Apollo and Artemis, in which I 
conquered, two thousand drachmas ; on a military dance, eight hun- 
dred ; on public festivals, including a dedication of a tripod, five thou- 
sand three hundred ; in seven years, I laid out six talents of silver in 
the capacity of trierarch ; and afterwards, thirty minae in contributions, 
together with four thousand drachmas : on gymnastics, twelve minae ; 
on the comic chorus, sixteen ; on a military dance, seven ; at a boat- 
race, fifteen ; and on sacred processions, thirty." It appears from this 
statement, that the more opulent part of the community were obliged 
to provide, not only for the security, but also for the recreations, of 
their poorer brethren. Sometimes, however, opportunities arose, 
whereby the votes of those who were gratified by this expenditure 
were made to indemnify those who bore it. If, for example, the latter 
were engaged in questions of litigated property, the judges are re- 
minded of the costly entertainments exhibited for their enjoyment, in 
comparison with which a just right and title is of secondary import- 
ance : thus the people plundered the rich by legal taxation, and the 
rich plundered one another through the medium of popular and venal 
courts. Even on the supposition that the legal decisions were 
equitable, the means employed to procure them prove the jury to have 
been corrupt. 1 Ample proofs of this state of things are to be found 
in the writings of Isaeus, who fully justifies the representation of the 
Athenian dicast, as it is drawn in the Aristophanic comedy. What- 
ever be the question at issue, whether the validity of a will, or the 
legality of the forms of adoption, the same mode of pleading is 
pursued. Each party attempts to show that he has been serviceable 
to the judges, and that his opponent has not. It is remarkable, too, 
that these persuasives are often placed towards the end of their 
respective speeches : 2 — probably, because, though they might be totally 
unconnected either with the question of law, or the question of fact, 
they were known, by long experience, to be the most effective kind of 
argument. 3 " There was no judge's summing-up to counteract or miti- 

1 Hence the friendship of the judges is esteemed so important by Aristotle, de 
Ehet. Hence, too, the following dialogue from the same treatise : — 

Ti;. Why do you not make your defence ? 
q>i\. Not yet, at any rate. 
Tig. When then ? 

<p t \. Not till I have seen some one else unjustly convicted. — Lib. ii. 3. 

2 Isaeus, de Apoll. and de Die. 

3 The contrast between this state of things, and the system of practical jurispru- 
dence under which it is our happiness to live, is drawn thus briefly and forcibly in 
the Edinburgh Review for October, 1850 : — " In England, the sole questions asked 
(in state trials for libel, treason, and sedition) are, what is the law, and has the ac- 
cused violated that law? To these questions all parties, judge, prosecutor, and 



JURISPRUDENCE OF THE ATHENIANS. 



447 



gate a false impression ; the whole scene was too much like a theatrical 
exhibition, the parties combatants, and the jury spectators. A trial it 
was not of truth only, but of skill and strength ; the jury, fresh from 
the charms of eloquence, with its music ringing in their ears, were 
called upon to give their verdict." 1 



prisoner, address themselves and confine themselves. Neither the counsel for the 
crown nor, generally, the counsel for the prisoner, make any appeal to the political 
predilections of the jury ; they are supposed to bring no such predilections into 
court : the judge coldly explains the law, the jury impartially investigate the fact/ 
1 Kennedy, Dem. p. 238. 



SECTION VII. 



CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 

Convivial It was after the termination of the business of the courts of law, — 
habits of the y. wag wnen the mercantile noise of the Pirasus had subsided, — when 
lemans. ^ i anc L ec [ proprietors had returned to the city, — when philosophers 
had ceased to moralise in public, and statesmen to debate, — that the 
polite society of Athens indulged their taste for convivial meetings. 
Food of the The first meal of all ranks was early and frugal: the lower classes 
commonalty, subsisted chiefly on bread, beans, olives, figs, lupines, turnips, vetches, 
peas, beech-mast, locusts, wild pears, 1 pickled provisions, and salt-fish, 
seasoned with onions and garlic ; and of such necessaries of life it has 
been computed, that a given sum of money would command about 
eight times as much as it would at present. 2 Among the higher 
orders, those meals to which each guest contributed his share, were 
Banquets of customary forms of conviviality. Athenian parties were a transcript 
the rich. Q f fo Q national character : their taste invested them with much that is 
elegant ; their mythology with much that is poetical ; their versatility 
of intellect admitted a combination of the lowest buffoonery with 
discussions of profound speculation ; while their feelings of democratic 
equality introduced, amidst the habits of luxurious refinement, riot, 
insolence, and gross indelicacy. That the furniture of the banqueting- 

1 Walpole, Com. Fragm. ; Graec. p. 10 ; Athen. lib. ii. p. 55. 

2 Boeckh thinks this too high ; he says, " the necessaries of life were, upon the 
whole, cheaper than at the present time." Vol. i. p. 83. 



CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 449 

room was at once elegant in shape, and costly in materials, is sufficiently 
attested by descriptions and relics 1 which exist. Many of the finest 
specimens of modern skill have done little more than copy or combine 
its excellencies. The very name of Grecian vases, couches, lamps, 
candelabra, and scrolls, suggests ideas of beauty, both in form and in 
decoration. Yet much of the original charm is necessarily lost, 
because the artist wrought on fictions, or on facts, whose interest no 
longer exists. In the Flatterer of Eupolis, a handsome banquet is 
reckoned at one hundred drachma?., and the wine at the same sum. 2 
But in the construction of houses, as late as the time of Aristides, Domestic 
domestic architecture had not been so applied as to mark, by the archltecta 
character of their residences, the different classes of society. De- 
mosthenes, 3 speaking of that age, says, " Privately, they were so 
moderate, and adhered so stedfastly to the customs of civil society, 
that if any of you chance to know the habitation of Aristides and 
Miltiades, and the illustrious men of that time, he perceives it to be 
not more conspicuous than its neighbour." But in later times, wealth 
and luxury took their usual course in the size and arrangement of 
dwellings as in other things, and hence Aristotle observes of the 
magnificent man (fxeyaXoirpETrrjG), that his house is appointed in a 
manner consistently with his wealth. 4 It is also remarkable, 5 that the 
works of the most eminent painters and statuaries were not at any 
time purchased for the embellishment of private mansions. Artists 
either worked for the state directly, or for individuals who intended 
their specimens of the fine arts as votive offerings. 6 Patriotism at 
Athens was a passion ; each citizen identified his own pleasure in these 
works with the glory of his country ; and therefore would have had 
less pleasure in the personal appropriation of private collections, than 
in the architecture of the incomparable Parthenon, the paintings of the 
Pcecile, and in the numberless statues which adorned the streets and 
porticoes of Athens. 

But, if the luxury of art was absent, the arts of luxury abounded ; use and 
flowers decorated both the dining-room and the guests : of these, some secret . 
had a figurative meaning, and others, a medicinal use ; a chaplet of flowers." 
violets, for example, was thought to counteract the effects of wine ; 7 
the rose, which poetry had dedicated to Aphrodite, was suspended 
above the table as an emblem of confidential intercourse. 8 This custom 



1 E. g. the Portland vase. 

2 Poll. ix. 59, quoted by Boeckh, vol. i. 137. " Four drachmae are equal to about 
two shillings and threepence of our money." P. 153. 

3 Olynth. 2. 4 Eth. iv. 2. 5 Heeren. 

6 " For those purposes, they think some part of the wealth of the country is as 
usefully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of individuals : it is the 
public ornament ; it is the public consolation ; it nourishes the public hope ; the 
poorest man finds his own importance and dignity in it." — Burke's Reflections. 

7 Plut. Symp. 

8 "Ce que les Grecs entendoient par l'amitie existoit entre les hommes : mais ils 

[H. G.J 2 G 



450 



CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 



is, perhaps, the origin of the proverbial expression now in use " under 
the rose." " Most of the flowers cultivated, moreover, suggested 
poetical or mythological associations; — thus the laurel recalled the 
tale and transformation of Daphne, the object of Apollo's love." Pollux 
gives a list of the flowers used in garlands. 1 
Festive The festive habits of the Greeks contained many allusions to 

hablts - the poetical parts of their religion. 

The first fruits of each meal were 
offered to the goddess Hestia. Three 
cups of peculiar solemnity passed 
round ; the first to the good genius, 
the second to Zeus the protector, the 
third to health. It was a maxim 
that the guests should not be less in 
number than the Graces, or more than 
the Muses ; but, as extravagance and 
ostentation flourished, these poetical ideas were so far disregarded, that 
a sumptuary law was necessary, suffering no more than thirty invited 




Extrava- 
gance in 
perfumery. 



Epicurism. 



Grecian bill 
of fare. 



Before each meal, and between each course, water was poured upon 
their hands. In the use of perfumery they were profuse. Oil 2 from 
Egypt was applied to the feet ; the palm-tree furnished ointment for 
the bosom, sweet marjoram for the hair and eye-brows, wild thyme for 
the arms. The room was fragrant with cinnamon and frankincense, 
myrrh, musk, camphor, and cassia. 3 The feast had commonly three 
courses : the first provoked appetite, rather than satisfied it, by sharp 
herbs, eggs, oysters, asparagus, olives, and a mixture of honey and 
wine. The third consisted of sweetmeats, with Thasian, Lesbian, 
and Chiau wines. 4 But it was on the second course especially, that 
Athenian cooks exercised their art, and Athenian epicures their appetite. 
Poultry and fish were its chief materials. Of the latter, a fragment 
of a comedy, by Mnesimachus, enumerates, in a bill of fare, twenty- 
six different kinds ; the names of which are translatable, with a rea- 
sonable probability of correctness. The shop of the Athenian poulterer 
also offered a tempting variety to the palate ; ducks, pigeons, pullets, 
becaficas, quails, thrushes, larks, red-breasts, woodcocks, turtle-doves, 



ne savoient pas, mais leurs mceurs leur interdisoient d'imaginer, qu'on pouvoit 
rencontrer dans les femmes un etre egal par l'esprit, et soumis par l'amour ; une 
compagne de la vie, heureuse de consacrer ses facultes, ses jours, ses sentimens, a 
completer une autre existence." — De Stael, sur la Lit. vol. i. 85. 
1 St. John, vol. ii. 304, 305. 

s Potter. 3 Mnesim. Fragm. 

* To perfume, clarify, and perfect wines the following strange ingredients were 
used : — sea-water, resin, vine-flowers, cypress leaves, cedar, bitter almonds, milk, 
chalk, pounded shells, toasted salt, gypsum, olive kernels, tar, pitch, spikenard, 
myrrh, saffron, cassia ; at last some were like a thick sirup. See Henderson on 
Wines. 



CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 



451 



partridges, and pheasants. By way of stimulants to the appetite, Grecian bill 
were used, pickled radishes, olives, onions, cole wort, garlic, gourds, offare - 
beans, or lettuce. Athens was celebrated for its pastry and bread ; 
Ehodes for dried figs ; Cappadocia for a species of bread, made of 
milk, oil, salt, and flour of wheat ; Bceotia 1 for eels ; Salamis for 
ducks ; Eubcea 2 for apples ; Phoenicia for dates ; Corinth for quinces ; 




Naxos for almonds. Xenophon remarks, that from the extent of their 
commercial transactions, the Athenians learnt different modes of " good 
living ;" " whatever," says he, " is delicious in Sicily, in Italy, Cyprus, 
Egypt, Lydia, Pontus, in Peloponnesus, or anywhere else, is collected 
at Athens." Nor did the taste of the epicure fail to discriminate 
amidst variety ; accordingly, he rejoiced in tunny-fish from Tyre, 8 a 

1 Aristoph. 2 Athenaeus. 3 Julius Pollux. 

2 g 2 



452 



CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 



kid from Melos, turnips from Mantinea, cheese from Sicily, 1 radishes 
from Thasos, beet- root from Ascra. 2 Materials collected by so wide a 
Culinary search abroad, were employed with great culinary skill at home ; nor 
sk,n - were the secrets of this art transmitted along the line of cooks only 
by oral tradition. Archestratus wrote expressly on the subject: 
fragments of his works are preserved in Athenaeus, together with 
Ancient some ancient receipts, — the singularity of which may excite a smile, 
frSm PtS ' without any strong regret that they are now superseded. Flour was 
AthenEeus. kneaded with aromatic herbs and blossoms ; sesame, with honey and 
oil ; pounded barley, with oil and lamb gravy ; a pig might be served 
up with the skin unbroken, and stuffed with thrushes, yolks of eggs, 
oysters, and various other shell-fish. A wild boar's liver was esteemed 
a delicacy ; also a lamb's head, and a sow's belly seasoned with cummin 
and vinegar; small birds were dressed with sauce of scraped cheese 
and oil. A fragrant cake might be made by bruising rose-leaves in a 
mortar, mixed with the brains of birds and pigs, and the yolks of 
eggs, with oil, pepper, and pickle, boiled over a slow fire. 
Description From the same industrious compiler, may be learned some amusing 
of a feast. characteristics of the behaviour of the guests. The following passage 
is written in mock heroics, containing an ingenious application of the 
phraseology of Homer. " The bread," says the speaker, "was whiter 
than snow : Boreas was enamoured of the loaves as they were baking : 
others fell on the vegetables. — I did not ; I ate onions and oysters. 
The shell-fish crackled under the slaves' feet ; a mullet entered ; his 
head was already in the hand of Stratocles ; I snatched and devoured 
it ; then came an immense eel ; the cook carried it up and down on 
his shoulders ; a sturgeon followed ; full as 1 was, I stretched out my 
hand for a bit. ' Surely,' said I, ' this is the true ambrosia ;' then a 
blackbird, so tempting, I cried to think I should not see it to-morrow ; 
then three ducks from Salamis ; Chcerephon ate like a lion, and 
secreted one leg for a meal at home : I was lying back quite full, but 
when I saw a yellow, sweet, large, round, cheese-cake, how could I 
abstain from the divine dish ?" 3 The following is the soliloquy of a 

j, 1 And doves. Philemon apud Stob. 115. 
2 The following sketch is from Athenaeus : — 

How is it 

No wreathed garland decks the festive door ? 

No savoury odour creeps into the nostrils ? 

Since 'tis a birth-feast ? Custom, sooth, requires 

Slices of rich cheese from the Chersonese, 

Toasted and hissing ; cabbage, too, in oil 

Fried brown and crisp, with smothered breast of lamb. 

Chaffinches, turtle-doves, and good fat thrushes, 

Should now be feathered ; rows of merry guests 

Pick clean the bones of cuttle-fish, together 

Gnaw the delicious feet of polypi, 

And drink large draughts of scarcely mingled wine. 

St. John, vol. i. 129. 

z Athen. iv. 5. See Casaubon's notes. 



CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 



453 



a cook 1 from Philemon's comedies : — "How tender was the fish I 
served up ! — not over-dressed with cheese ; it looked alive when it was 
dished ; the first who tasted it jumped up and ran off with the plate 
in his hand ; the rest followed him ; some were fortunate, others got 
nothing. If now, I had had to dress a scarus, 2 or an Attic glanciscus, 
a boar-fish, or a conger-eel, from Sicyon, the very dining upon them 
should have been an apotheosis." 3 

Such scenes of riot and rude merriment may be, in some measure, Privileged 
accounted for by the fact that, according to the conventional forms of Jesters - 
Athenian society, some privileged characters, as jesters and jugglers, 
might appear without an invitation : parasites, also, frequently formed 
part of the company, combining, in different degrees, the qualities of 
buffoon, punster, flatterer, gourmand, and bully. "I make myself Office of a 
agreeable," says one 4 of the fraternity, " utter my jokes, praise the P arasite - 
master, abuse any guest that contradicts me, eat and drink, and then 
betake myself to my bed." " When I go out," says another, " I do 
not notice the cornice or the ceiling : I look for the smoke of the 
kitchen ; if that is upright, and strong, I rejoice ; if thin and scat- 
tered, I sorrow." The character is thus sketched by Antiphanes : — 

In life, my life at least, the first of pleasures 

Were to be rich myself : but next to this 

I hold it best to be a parasite, 

And feed upon the rich. 

No striker I, no swaggerer, no defamer, 

But one to bear all these, and still forbear. 

If you insult, I laugh unruffled, merry, 

Invincibly good-humoured still I laugh. 

Will you sit down to supper, I'm your guest ; 

Your very fly to enter without bidding : 

I'm for all work, and though the job were stabbing, 

Betraying, false-accusing, only say 

"Do this," — and it is done. 

Cumberland.. 

In general, however, the office of the parasite was more pacific. 
The parasite of Eupolis has a nimble page, two suits of clothes ; he 
saunters on the agora, flatters the rich, gulls the foolish ; in short, lives 
by his wits from day to day, and when he is not invited out, sups on 
barley-cakes. 5 The rude man (arj^rjc) in Theophrastus, at his own 
table, points out his parasite to the guests, and bids him amuse the 
company (repxpov tovq Trapovrag). In case his memory failed to supply Amusements 
anecdotes or jests, he read them from a book ; but if his entertainers JJ r °JJg ed 
were dissatisfied with his powers of amusement, blows 6 and other company, 
practical insults were the consequence ; his seat was removed from 
under him, the dishes were broken upon his head, 7 and he was turned 

' Ten minaj for a cook, one drachma for a physician, five talents for a flatterer, 
moonshine for a monitor, a talent for a courtesan, threepence for a philosopher. — 
Crates, quoted by Bentley. 2 Athen. iv. 5. 3 Ibid. vii. 10. 

4 Ibid. vi. 5 Cumberland, Observer, No. 137. 

« Plautus. 7 Ibid. Capt. i. 1. 



i ipfff - 

454 CONVIVIAL HABITS OF THE ATHENIANS. 

out of doors with a collar round his neck. 1 In the Banquet of Plato, 
besides a character of this stamp, there are introduced a piper, a 
Dancing dancing-girl, a lyrist, and a juggler, who threw twelve balls into the 
girls " air, " catching them exactly in time," and who tumbled and danced in 
the midst of sharp swords. Even at the least boisterous of the con- 




vivial meetings of the Greeks, dancing was an ordinary recreation. 
Meursius names one hundred and eighty-four kinds of dancing, some 
were pantomimic representations of mythology, e.g., the story of 
Niobe, or Daphne, the infancy of Zeus, or the deeds of Heracles. 
The master of the house did not necessarily preside at the feast. 
That dignity was determined by lot, and imposed the duty of pro- 
viding, not only that each guest received his portion of wine, but also 

Potations. that he drank it. To taste a cup and hand it to a friend, was a 
courteous salutation, of which the reciprocal part was to finish the 
contents of the offered goblet. A lover drank to his mistress as many 
cups as there were letters in her name. The pleasures of wine were 

Music. heightened by those of harmony. A lyre was handed round, to, 
which the guests sang, separately, or in chorus, satirical, amorous, or 

Riddles. more serious compositions. Or the guests exercised their ingenuity 
by questions couched in the ambiguity of fallacies, or in anagrams and 

Poetry. riddles : or by demanding verses from some poet, corresponding with 
certain conditions : as, for example, that a particular letter should be 
excluded, that the first and last letters should be alike, or that the first 
and last syllables should compose a word. A failure was followed by 
the penalty of drinking wine mixed with salt. 2 

1 Walp. Com. Grsec. Fragm. p. 5. 

2 Many of the games of the ancients, as described by Meursius, exist at present, 
with little variation. The Cottabus consisted in throwing wine into the orifice of 
floating phials, or into scales, suspended over a metallic image : there is more 
spirit in the following sport : — Stand on a round ball, with a running noose round 
your neck, and a knife in your hand ; when your opponent kicks away the ball, 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE GREEKS. 



455 



Of course, by graver characters, 1 more serious subjects were dis- Philosophi- 
cussed. They who are desirous of becoming acquainted with the cal ban( i uet - 
details of a literary conversazione, will find in the Banquet of Plutarch 
the political and domestic wisdom of the seven wise men of Greece, 
— or a strange mixture of metaphysics and sensuality in the eloquent 
Symposium of Plato, — or in that of Xenophon, a discussion more 
lively, more varied in its topics, more intelligible, and probably more 
characteristic of the state of convivial society among Athenians of 
rank and talent. 

Before we draw these remarks to a conclusion, there is yet one Respect paid 
aspect more under which we may contemplate the customs of the t0 the dead - 
ancient Greek — namely, as he testified by outward signs his respect 
and love for the memory of the dead. Such feelings are planted 
deeply in the human heart, and therefore such signs are universal. 
The desire of sepulchral honours is, in those who seek them, an ex- 
pectation of one kind of immortality — the immortality of public 
renown, or, in private life, of affectionate remembrance. In those who 
pay this tribute to the deceased, sorrow is alleviated by the oppor- 
tunity of immediate exertion: " Fungar inani munere " 2 has always 
been the language of love, though reason acknowledges that the gift is 
useless. Grassy mound, or cairn, or pyramid — mausoleum, bust, or 
statue — inscription, pillar, slab, or monumental brass — all attest by 
various signs the same feeling in different times and nations. 

In that semicivilized age described by Homer, the vindictive nature Funeral 
of a conqueror sometimes overpowered his generous feeling, and caused ce rem <> nies - 
him to insult the corpse of a fallen foe ; still such injury was the out- 
break of individual anger : it was not sanctioned by the customs of 
the age. In fact, all through antiquity, respect for the dead was part 
of the law of nations. Achilles, pierced to the heart with sorrow and 
anger, drags behind his chariot, thrice round the tomb of his beloved 
friend Patroclus, the corpse of Hector, who had slain him ; but the 
same Achilles, in his cooler moments, 3 bids his own slaves wash and 
anoint the same corpse ; he himself assists in raising it to the litter, 



then cut at the string ; if you succeed, you win the game, if not, you are hanged. 
(Athenaeus.) See this subject treated historically, at great length, by St. John, 
vol. i. 3. ; satirically, with great humour, in Scriblerus' Memoirs, ch. v. A few 
names of the ancient pastimes and their (supposed) translation may excite curiosity. 
Muinda, blindman's-buff ; chytrinda, hot-cockles ; trygodiphesis, bob-cherry. (St. 
John.) " '1 will permit my son to play at apodidascinda,' which can be no other 
than our puss-in-a-corner." (Scribl. ch. iii.) Bullinger has a learned essay on 
these subjects in the Classical Journal, No. IX. p. 67. 

1 The short work of Theophrastus, in which he sketches the Flatterer, the Gar- 
rulous, the Querulous, the Boaster, and others, is entertaining ; it should, however, 
be read continuously : extracts from it appear insignificant and feeble. 

2 " I will discharge an unavailing office." — Virgil, Mn. vi. 885. 
8 II. xxiv. 15. 



456 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE GREEKS. 



Funeral and swathes it in costly garments, that the eye of a broken-hearted 
ceremonies. f a ^ ner m ight not rest on the body of bis warrior-son. 1 

The funeral robe, 2 thus diverted from its purpose by the considerate 
generosity of Achilles, was sometimes woven by the prospective piety 
of filial hands. The web of Penelope, the fame of which is proverbial, 
was destined, as she said, to shroud her husband's father : had she not 
made this provision, the Grecian ladies might have taxed her with 
neglect. 3 

The body, washed, anointed, and swathed (the eyes having been 
closed by some near relation 4 ), was placed with its feet toward the 
door. 5 Hector's body, on its return to Troy, was met by a funeral 
procession, headed by his family: bards and women then raised a 
funeral song, and at intervals his mother, wife, and sister-in-law pro- 
claimed his praise and bewailed their own loss. The corpse was then 
placed on a pile of wood and burnt ; the embers were slaked with 
wine. The ashes of the hero were then collected in a golden vase 
and buried beneath a pile of stones. 6 Most of these circumstances are 
found also in the description of the funeral of Patroclus ; and to these 
are added vases of honey and oil, and slaughtered victims, sheep, 
oxen, dogs, horses, and twelve Trojan captives. 7 The burial is fol- 
lowed by various games, which occupy the greater part of the twenty- 
third book of the Iliad. 




Funeral Some critics have thought it indecent and unfeeling that funeral 

ceremonies should conclude with feasting. This practice was certainly 
common both to Greeks and Asiatics in Homer's time ; 8 and the poet 
plainly thought it consistent with the deepest grief. Surely a feast 
may be solemn as well as joyous ; and, considered as hospitality in 
honour of the deceased, it loses all appearance of indecorum — at least, 

1 II xxiv. 583. 2 Ibid. 580. 3 Od. i. 101. 

4 Od. xi. 425. 5 II. xix. 212. 

6 II. xxiv. 707 to 798 ; and compare Od. xxiv. 57 to 90, and Eurip. Alcest. 407 
to 478. 

7 II. xxiii. 165 to 175. 8 Compare II. xxiii. 29, and xxiv. 802. 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE GREEKS. 



457 



it is not essentially indecorous, though of course it may degenerate Funeral 



into excess 



l ceremonies. 



While the body lay, as it were, in state, the chief mourner sup- 
ported the head. 2 Dark robes and shorn hair, 3 and long abstinence 
from convivial meetings, appear as the usual signs of sorrow in the 
Alcestis ; torn garments and lacerated cheeks 4 are the tribute of grief 
paid to Agamemnon ; and a single lock (^rrXoKajjiog irevd^T^pLoo) is 
dedicated to his memory by the filial hand of Orestes. 5 The excessive 
grief of Achilles showed itself by his throwing dust and ashes 6 on his 
head ; that of Priam by his repeatedly rolling himself in the mire 7 
(KvXivdo/jiEvog Kara KQirpov'). The body of the departed was covered, 8 
and crowned with chaplets of flowers ; a piece of money placed in its 
mouth, as payment of Charon's fee for being ferried across the river 
Styx, and a cake of flour and honey as an offering to Cerberus. 
Custom placed at the door of the deceased locks of hair as an indica- 
tion of recent death, and a vessel of water as a means of cleansing by 
sprinkling. 9 

In respect of the time and place of Grecian burials, no uniformity 
of custom prevailed : some performed their funeral rites by day, others 
by night ; some within the city walls, others by the highway ; 10 but 
all wished to be gathered to their father's tomb, or at least to rest at 
last in their own country. 11 The first scene of the Andria of Terence 
describes a funeral with great perspicuity and spirit, and much curious 
information in detail will be found in those parts of Bekker's Charicles 
entitled the Invalid and the Will. 12 

It is obvious that these and kindred subjects would offer to the condition of 
poet rich materials of pathos, and an ample field for descriptive verse. ^J* 1 ^ 3 of 
And such descriptions would lay hold more forcibly on the Greek remained 
mind than they could on the modern, because the dread of being un- unbuned - 
buried was in ancient times something like the dread of dying excom- 
municated now. When Abraham stood up from before his dead, a 
stranger and a sojourner among the sons of Heth, all that appears is 

I One of the most pathetic passages in English fiction describes a species of feast 
forming one part of funeral rites : " According to the fashion of Scotland on such 
occasions, wine and spirits and bread were offered round to the guests. .... As 
the old woman tasted the liquor she suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of shriek, 
* What's this ? This is wine ; how should there be wine in my son's house ? Ay,' 
she continued, with a suppressed groan, ' 1 mind the sorrowful cause now ;' and 
dropping the glass from her hand, she stood a moment gazing fixedly on the bed in 
which the coffin of her grandson was deposited, and then sinking gradually into her 
seat she covered her eyes and forehead with her withered and pallid hand." — • 
Scott's Antiquary, vol. ii. ch. x. 2 II. xxiv. 724, and xxiii. 136. 

3 Eurip. Alcest. 833 and 353, and Orestes, 113. 

4 jEschyl. Choeph. xxiii. * ,E sc hyl. Choeph. 7 and 177. 
c II. xviii. 23. 1 II. xxiv. 640. 

8 Eurip. Troades, 1143, and Hippolyt. 1458. 
Eurip. Alcest. 98. 

10 Alcest. 850. Burial took place the day after the body was laid out. 

II Soph. Elect. 1135. 

12 See also Potter's Antiquities, lib. iv. ch. i., and Brace's Age of Homer, p. 189. 



458 



"FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE GREEKS. 



his natural anxiety that he might bury his dead out of his sight, and 
that the field, and the cave that was therein, should be made sure 
unto him " for a possession of a burying-place." 1 But in Homer the 
importance of burial is far greater ; the delay or the denial of it ma- 
terially affects the happiness of the disembodied spirit. Its condition 
appears from the expostulations addressed by the ghost of Patroclus 
to Achilles : " Bury me as quickly as possible, that I may pass the 
gates of Hades ; the souls (\pvica.i) y the spectres, of those who have 
passed through their labour (eiSioXa Kajiovruv) do repel me far, and 
as yet do not suffer me to join myself to them beyond the river, but I 
wander neglected (avrwg) in the dwelling of Hades." 2 It is remark- 
able that the superstition which was frightened by the thought of this 
absolute loss of burial was yet satisfied with very scanty funeral rites. 
Three handfuls of earth 3 cast on the body satisfied the law, and ad- 
mitted the departed ghost to all the privileges of the lower regions. 
Use made of As it was the object of the tragic poets to create that pleasure 
stition P by" which arises from a mixed feeling of pity and terror, they naturally 
poets and availed themselves of this part of the popular mythological creed. The 

statesmen 

pains and penalties of non-interment are the complaint of Polydorus in 
the Hecabe of Euripides, 4 the threats of Menelaus 5 against Ajax in 
Sophocles, and the decree of the Theban ruler in iEschylus against 
Polyneices. 6 The execution of a similar decree is the very tale and 
plot of the Antigone. That tragedy of Sophocles carried two moral 
lessons connected with this subject : Creon, the usurper of Thebes, 
threatens with death any one who should perform the rites of sepul- 
ture over the body of Polyneices J Antigone, the sister of the latter, 
determines to bury him, and does bury him. 8 Both she and Creon 
suffer: she loses her life 9 and he his only son — the one suffers for 
breaking the law of the gods, the other for breaking the law of the 
state. 10 

All these superstitious feelings of the people were useful to the 
politician as well as to the dramatic writer : the latter wrought on 
them to create pleasurable emotions, the former to enforce civil obedi- 
ence ; and that in two ways, first by attaching to certain offences the 
public disgrace of non-interment, and, secondly, by so managing sepul- 
chral honours as to stimulate patriotic ambition. 

To the Greek not only his own country was politically his parent, 
but his thought and feeling; carried the analogy much further than 
the modem expressions " Fatherland and native country." 11 " These, 

1 Genesis, xxiii. 

2 II. xxiii. 74. See Buttman on the sense of oivrug. Elpenor makes, very pa- 
thetically, the same request to Odysseus (Od. xi. 66), and entreats that the oar 
with which he used to row may be fixed on his tomb (v. 77). 

3 Injecto ter pulvere curras. Hor. Odes, lib. i. 28. 

4 Eurip, Hec. v. 30. 5 Soph. Ajax, 1140. 
6 .Eschyl. Septem contra Thebes, 1015. 7 Antig. 27 and 198. 
8 Ibid. 431. 9 Ibid. 1221. » Ibid. 1240. 

11 See especially Plato's Funeral Oration, sec. 2, plycc Ti rtxpfyta*. 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE GREEKS. 



459 



says Plato, in his funeral oration, " were brought up not by a step- 
mother, as others, but by a mother — the country in which they dwelt : 
and now, having ended their course, they lie where they are at home, 
within that mother who produced and reared them, and now has 
received them again to herself." 1 As thus parricide or matricide Traitors de- 
were naturally the greatest crimes against the family, so a traitor's foment 
treachery was politically the greatest crime against the state, and 
therefore was punished by privation of the rites of burial. When 
democratic jealousy and suspicion had procured the condemnation of 
Phocion to death, his body was not allowed to remain within the 
bounds of Attica, nor was any Athenian allowed to furnish fire for 
the funeral pile. Plutarch contradicts a story that the ashes of 
Themistocles were stolen from his tomb and scattered to the winds. 
The tale may be true or false, but it would not have circulated at all 
unless public indignation had been known to take this mode of 
expressing itself against the crime of treason. Potter, in his book of 
Grecian Antiquities, mentions some other offenders who received from 
the state this kind of punishment, more or less severe, e. g., sacri- 
legious persons, suicides, or spendthrifts. 2 Public feeling on this 
subject was was also shown in that when scrutiny was made into the 
characters of those who were candidates for public offices, it inquired 
whether due respect had been paid to the burial and the memory of 
deceased relations. 

When, however, the state could exchange the unpleasing offices of 
inquiry and punishment for the more agreeable manifestation of praise, 
she delighted to honour her deceased citizens by the ceremonies of a 
public funeral. To be gathered to the tomb of his fathers gratified 
the Greek's domestic feelings : to be buried on the field of victory was 
one of the highest rewards of his patriotic valour: The force of this 
feeling comes out in a dialogue between Croesus and Solon: the 
former hoped and expected that the experience, observation, and 
travelled wisdom of the latter would pronounce him the happiest of 
men because he was the richest. Solon, however, gave the preference 
to Tellus, " because," said he, " as we estimate things" (u>g ra nap' 
$/uv) " the end of his life was most brilliant, for a battle having taken 
place between the Athenians and their neighbours at Eleusis, he, Brave war, 
having routed the enemy, died most gloriously, and where he fell "here they 
there the Athenians buried him publicly and honoured him greatly." 3 felL 
Those also who were slain at the battle of Marathon were buried on 

1 Pericles was beyond his age when he said, in his famous funeral oration, 
avb^uv yko iTTi^avuv Truaa. yri rdtyo;. — x. r. X. Lord Byron has the same thought in 
his lines on the death of Sir Peter Parker : — 

" In vain their bones unburied lie — 
All earth becomes their monument." 

2 Xenophon, however, in the first book of the Hellenics, mentions only traitors 
{•xgoh'orcti) and sacrilegious robbers ('ugoirvXoi). Potter says, "Those who wasted 
their patrimony forfeited their right of being buried in the sepulchres of their 
fathers." Lib. iv. ch. i. 3 Herod, lib. i. ch. xxx. 



460 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE GREEKS. 



Public the spot i 1 one barrow covered the Athenians, another the Platseans : 
funerals « p ausan j as visiting the spot above 600 years after, found them with 
the inscribed names of the slain still perfect." 2 Annual offerings of 
garments and the fruits of the earth were made at the graves of those 
who fell in the battle, and were buried in the territory, of Plataea. 3 
From that time onwards, if not earlier, at Athens a public speech was 
delivered by an orator chosen by the state over those who were digni- 




fied with a public funeral. Thucydides tells us how that ceremony 
was performed, after the established custom, over those who were 
described by killed in the first battles of the Peloponnesian war. Three days 
ihucydides. k e f ore ^he carrying forth to burial, the remains (ra oara) lay in state 
in a tent : any one brought what offering he pleased to his deceased 
kindred or friends ; each tribe placed in its own cypress chest the 
bones of its members ; these were carried on wains to the Cerameicus, 
and with them was one empty chest, the cenotaph of those whose 
bodies might not have been recovered. Citizens and strangers joined 
the procession, and women, the kindred of the deceased, poured forth 
their lamentations around a public sepulchre. 4 Over these warriors 
thus interred was delivered the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles. 

1 Thucyd. lib. ii. ch. xxxiv. : " Judging their valour pre-eminent, there they 
buried them." 2 Mitford, ch. xi. sec. i. 

3 Thucyd. lib. iii. ch. lviii. The details of the ceremony are found in Plutarch's 
Life of Aristides. Flowers, myrtle, wine, milk, oil, and essences : the Archon of 
Platsea follows the procession, sacrifices a black bull, and pours out a bowl of wine 
to the men who died for the liberty of Greece. Such is the ceremony still ob- 
served by the Plataeans.— Langhorne, vol. ii. p. 443. 

4 Thucyd. lib. ii. ch. xxxiv. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



461 



Khetoricians kept by them ready-made orations on similar subjects • Funeral 
we may conjecture the nature of these compositions from the speeches orations - 
which have been preserved, one by Plato and the other by Lysias. 1 
No doubt such ceremonies and sach orations were instruments of a 
wise policy. Addressed to Athenians, when their hearts were softened 
by public sorrow, and their feelings kindled by emulation, ranging 
over the whole page of past times, fabulous and historical, without any 
fear that their descriptions would be very truthfully scrutinised, they 
could not fail to impress on every generous and high-minded citizen, 
that the first of his duties and his greatest happiness was to sacrifice 
all selfish views to the prosperity, dominion, and glory of his country. 



And now, what conclusions may fairly be drawn from an inquiry Conclusions 
into the social condition of the ancient Greeks ? Briefly, they are JJ^ckf 
these. Wheresoever it makes us acquainted with their jurisprudence, condition of 
it reveals facilities of false accusation, against which no personal Greek^ 16 * 1 ' 
integrity was a sufficient guard, and a system of taxation and legal 
confiscation, by which wealth might at any time become the prey of 
popular rapacity. Wheresoever it illustrates their religious creed, it 
exemplifies an Apostle's declaration, " the world by wisdom knew not 
God." Wheresoever it exposes their domestic habits, it verifies the 
same writer's description of the vices of the heathen world. But, 
apart from these considerations, among those who did not trouble 
themselves with the theory of religion, or the practice of virtue, — 
among those who had neither the scruples of integrity, nor the anxieties 
of wealth, there were, in Athens at least, abundant materials of 
Pagan happiness ; or, if happiness be too dignified a term, of much 
animal, political, and intellectual enjoyment. 

The convivial habits of the higher classes of society exhibit many Provision by 
of the refinements of luxury. 2 Poverty and debt were, indeed, among ^ ^^ or 
the many evils which demanded correction from the wisdom of Solon, 
but they do not appear in later periods as the frequent causes of 
popular disaffection. Isocrates declares, that the effect of the con- 
stitution, as it was constructed by Solon, and modified by Clisthenes, 
was to secure every citizen a competence : 3 and when he names the 
prevalence of poverty, he names it as the characteristic only of his own 
times. One obolus a-day was allowed to those who were disabled in 
war : the state educated the children of those who perished in her 
defence till the age of eighteen. By what steps the law came after- 
wards to embrace the aged, the sick, the blind, and infirm of every 
description, is not known. It did not, however, require them to be 

1 Among the speeches of Demosthenes is one which purports to have been de- 
livered over those who fell at the battle of Chseronea. Its authenticity is discussed 
by Mitford, ch. xlii. sec. vi. ad fin. See also article Greek Orators. 

2 Athenseus describes, at the wedding-feast of Caranus, together with munificent 
hospitality, the scenic illusion and machinery of a melo-dramatic entertainment. 

3 Areopagitica. See St. John, vol, iii. p. 68, et seq. 



462 



CONCLUSIONS RESPECTING THE 



absolutely destitute before they could receive relief. Any citizen 
whose property did not exceed three mina?, or twelve pounds sterling, 
was entitled to ,the allowance; 1 probably two oboli a-day. Now 
Demosthenes, who may be taken as the representative of the mode- 
rately rich, had eight hundred and forty minse : thus, every one whose 
social position was to the moderately rich, as one to two hundred and 
eighty, might receive state relief if he chose. Some, no doubt, 
escaped the degradation by manual labour ; others, by clubs, either 
political, religious, or charitable. Nightly shelter was accessible to all 
who needed it. Cimon was as remarkable for his munificent hos- 
pitality towards the poorer classes, 2 as for those conquests which 
enriched the public treasury. From the days of Pericles, a third part 
of the citizens received from the government, during ten months of the 
year, more than enough for their maintenance ; the other two months 
were occupied entirely in festivals; at which frequent distributions 
were made of corn, meat, and money. When that great statesman 
removed the public treasures of Greece from Delos, his appropriation 
of them to the decoration of Athens spread plenty " among persons of 
every rank and condition." 3 He also prevented or remedied, by ex- 
tensive colonization, the evils of an excessive population. At the return 
of the people after the overthrow of the thirty tyrants, there were 
only five thousand of the citizens who had not some land ; 4 from all 
which circumstances it may be conjectured, that among the Athenians, 
the means of subsistence were not scanty, at least before the days of 
Isocrates. 

Literary But, however this may be, the sources of their political and intel- 

pieasures. i ec t ua | enjoyment are less questionable. To an Athenian citizen, life 
must have been a scene of perpetual excitement. He had his liveliest 
feelings kept alert, by war abroad, by faction at home, by his own 
importance in the general assembly, or the courts of law, by the 
flattery of those who needed his patronage, or by the objects that lay 
open to his ambition. Besides his personal share in the immediate 
concerns of his country, its past history was a theme of never-failing 
interest ; and great must have been his pride and pleasure 6 when such 
a topic was intrusted to Pericles or Plato, to Lysias or Isocrates, — 

» St. John. 2 Plut. 

3 Plut. in Peric, 4 Boeckh, vol. ii. p. 248. 

6 It was in the time of Demosthenes that the first complaints were made that 
too many estates came into the hands of individuals. The necessaries of life were 
cheap, owing to the abundance of the supply and the comparatively limited range 
of commerce. 

6 As Socrates says, in his droll ironical way : outoj; 'ivavXos o Xoyos <rs xcti o 
(pSoyyo? Wxpoi <rov Xiyovro; h%vi<rcti li; ra. 2ra, cliffri f&ayt; Tirot^nrn 7i •rif/.'Trri '/iju'tga 
dvxfjiiftv'/itrxoftai i/tccwrov xcti cuo-Qu.voti.cti ov yri$ ii/zr t'ioos Ti oifictt f/Jvov ovx iv pa.xu.Quv 
vYio-ois otx'Jv ouroji hfjuv ol gnro^is "hi^io) (ari. (Plat. Menex.) " With such musical 
freshness does the voice and argument of the speaker enter my ears, that scarcely, 
on the fourth or fifth day, do I remember where in the world I am : up to that 
time I imagine myself all but dwelling in the islands of the blessed : so clever are 
these our rhetoricians." 



SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE GREEKS. 



463 



when all the powers of the most harmonious, flexible, and copious of 
languages were exerted in exalting those national subjects which really 
justified panegvric, while those which did not were palliated by the 
admixture of poetical fiction, 1 with the charms of oratorical eloquence. 2 
These enjovments, indeed, recurred only on occasional festivals, when 
the delights of music, dancing, feasting, and theatrical entertainments 
combined to amuse the people. But the business of the courts of law 
afforded a daily intellectual treat; for judicial pleadings were such 
finished specimens of composition as no modern orator would attempt, 
and no modern audience would appreciate. The Athenians, as a 
nation, were accurate judges of the harmonious arrangement of sen- 
tences ; and, from the days of Themistocles, this taste was gratified by 
a succession of orators, whose several excellencies were combined in 
the matchless perfections of Demosthenes. 3 

The drama, moreover, was to the Athenians another source of Pleasures of 
intellectual gratification and of national pride ; for they were not only the drama - 
its patrons, but its inventors. It would be superfluous to enlarge on 
the merits of Greek tragedy, or on that degree of taste and mental 
cultivation of which they are the sign. At two festal periods, an 
audience of thirty thousand listened all day without weariness to the 
great tragic poets ; the same audience, with that versatility which was 
their distinguishing characteristic, listened with equal delight to the 
vulgar indecencies of the old comedy. Aristophanes has accom- 
modated himself far too much to the moral degradation of his hearers ; 
yet, together with his gross ribaldry, there is much political wit 
addressed to Athenian party spirit, much political wisdom addressed 
to their good sense, and for their higher and purer feelings, much 
genuine poetry. His successors in the middle and new comedy were 
very numerous, and the testimony of Quinctilian is strong in favour of 
their merit. From the representation of the first play of iEschvlus, 
B.C. 499, to the death of Menander, B.C. 292, a period elapsed of 
207 years ; during all this time Athens enjoyed the recreations of the 
drama, till at length she sunk into a state of dependence on the Mace- 
donian monarch, — till her orators were bribed or frightened into 
silence, — and till Menander and Posidippus ceased to exercise those 
dramatic talents, which then successors were unable to imitate. 

Yet, even in then mirth there was much of sadness ; a sadness Yet their 
which we may trace, not only in the choral odes of tragedy, but even jfjjjjy haS 
in the fragments of the comic Muse : a sadness, perhaps inseparable sadness, 
from the condition of active and highly-gifted minds, sensible of the 
evils of this life, and without the hope, — at least without the know- 
ledge, — of a better. The most acute and accomplished heathen 
moralist 4 spoke of nothing beyond the grave ; hence, the popular 
philosophy, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 

1 Plat. Menex. 2 Plato in Menex. ad init. 

3 They who now read him with delight may remember the exclamation of his 
great rival, rt It rou &r,nov i.Kr.Koa.-t — " What if you had heard the monster I" 
* Ar. Eth. 



464 



CONCLUSIONS RESPECTING- THE 



The sentiment of Job, ch. v., " Man is born unto trouble, as the 
sparks fly upward," passes into deeper sadness in the outpouring of 
Homeric verse : the poet, when life was fresh, lamented the sorrows of 
man as such : the same poet, when perhaps his own sun was declining 
into the fainter lustre of the Odyssey, lamented man's feebleness} In 
these two passages, so nearly alike, the slight variation is natural, for 
the abiding sorrow of old age is its feebleness. The Chorus 2 in 
Sophocles would not have said " The best lot is never to have been 
born, and the second best is to depart from life as quickly as possible," 
unless the feelings of the audience were likely, at the moment, to 
vibrate in unison with this note of melancholy. Menander 3 claims for 
man supremacy of sorrow, enlarging his comparison with all the 
homely licence of the comic Muse : " If any one of the deities were 
to say to me, ' since, after you are dead, you must live again, you shall 
be what you please, dog, sheep, goat, man, or horse, I think I should 
straightway say, make me anything but man.' " Crates, Mimnermus, 4 
Posidippus, 5 Philemon, 6 and Sotades are alike mournful and desponding 
in their estimate of human existence. And as life was endurance in its 
progress, so was it a problem in its termination ; both these ideas are 
brought out in the 32nd chapter of the Apology of Socrates. One 
department of the Greek Anthology contains two hundred and thirty- 
seven epitaphs of various dates and authors ; from Sappho and Erinna, 
about 600 b. c, to Damascius and Julian, about 350 A. D. Several of 
these describe a future state, under the usual imagery of the popular 
mythology, 7 Elysium and Olympus, Hades and Minos : some speak of 
the country of the pious, evatpeiov, Nos. 564, 628, or of the heritage 
of the immortals : a few seem to have an exaggerated stamp of 
wretchedness, Nos. 614, 609. But, in general, where feeling appears 
to be most real, there hope appears to be most faint, or appears not 
at all. See especially Nos. 496, 497, 490, 587, 515. These short 
poems range over subjects of some variety and great pathos, and are 
expressed in language of simplicity, conciseness, and elegance. Some 
are thrown into the form of a dialogue, No. 587 ; in others, children, 
parents, wives, brides, friends, either lament those whom they have 
lost, or if, speaking from the grave, they suggest consolation to the 
survivors, it is drawn from the acknowledged sorrows of life, Nos. 577, 
589, or the soothing pleasure of affectionate recollection, No. 620 : a 
few, however, breathe the hope of reunion, Nos. 606, 610. 

i Compare II. xvii. 446, with Od. xviii. 129. 2 (Ed. Col. 1225. 

3 Fragm. : u r)$ <xgoai'k&t»v. Stob. 106. See also afravros <r« Zu %ffri ftezxagw- 
Tipoc. Stob. 98. 

4 Brunck. Anthol, p. 68, hf&iTs oiocti cpvXXa. 

5 Ibid. p. 135, vro'iwv <ris fiioroio. 

6 Stobseus, vroXv y Io-ti vdvrm. For Crates and Sotades see Cumberland. 

7 See Nos. 633, 507, 516, 554, Edwards' edition. The first of these opens very 
beautifully : " Thou art not dead, O Prote ! but thou hast past to a better place, 
where, in much enjoyment (^«x/>j), thou dost inhabit the islands of the blest." The 
author and date of this epitaph are unknown. 



SOCIAL CONDITION" OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS. 



465 



We know there is " a light which lighteth every man that cometh Pagan 
into the world ;" yet, if unassisted by revelation, it is, at best, as a ligllt f"? 

i -i i • m l i i ii consolation 

lamp m obscurity, making darkness visible, rather than dispelling it. 
The great truth of a Providence lay amidst the errors of polytheism ; 
the great truth of future retribution lay among the poetic follies of 
Tartarus and Elysium. Speculations on such subjects, so far as they 
were right, were divine ; so far as they were mistaken, they were 
human. Accordingly, Justin says, " Whatsoever has been well better than 
spoken or discovered by philosophers and legislators has been owing to de!pSr SS and 
that partial discovery and observation of the Word to which their 
labours conducted them. But because they had no complete know- 
ledge of the Word, who is Christ, they fell into many contradictions." 1 
Immortality was " brought to light" by the Gospel, and though the 
practical piety of our own times has not been raised in a degree pro- 
portionate to its knowledge of divine things, yet our social condition is Our present 
so far morally improved, in comparison with that of the ancient condition 
Greeks, that some ministers of moral pestilence are now forced to walk 
in darkness, which formerly destroyed in the noon-day. There are in 
Aristophanes and Plautus not only expressions but scenes which no 
audience would endure now. The merciless remedy which checked 
an excessive population is forbidden by a religion which not only says, 
man is not to put asunder what God has joined, but also, that the 
infant life which God has given, man has no right to take away. Our 
social system is also free from the blot of slavery ; but on this point 
our superiority is probably greater in theory than in reality. Large 
masses of the population of our crowded towns are now in a worse compred 
condition both of body and mind than was the Athenian slave. J^ancfen? 
He, at least, had the necessaries of life in abundance and some of its Greeks, 
enjoyments ; to vast multitudes of our people, life is a process of 
starvation from the cradle to the grave. 2 At Athens, provision was 
made for the physical wants of all, and for the frequent recreation of 
the male citizens in general ; though many of the refinements of our 
luxury were not enjoyed by any part of the community. Boeckh 
examines this subject at great length, and comes to this conclusion, 
" upon the whole, however, the cheapness and facility of living were 
considerable." 3 In our own time, extreme poverty is often the parent 
of vice, and vice the parent of remorse ; and remorse inflicts most 
misery on the conscience, the feelings, and the heart, when the under- 
standing has admitted the Christian doctrine of a future state. Of 
course, many escape more or less from this mental distress by parting 
more or less with this faith ; but such a change is painful in its pro- 
cess, fatal in its results, and thus the unbeliever born escapes much 
suffering of the unbeliever made. Constitutional freedom, and edu- 

1 Quoted in Archdeacon Wilberforce on the Incarnation, p. 132. 

2 It is calculated that the labour of the peasantry is two-thirds too much, and 
their food two-thirds too little. Medical Essays, 1851, by Dr. King, of Brighton. 

3 Vol. i. pp. 57, 153. 

[H. G.J 2 H 



466 



CONCLUSION. 



cation which is political, philosophical, and literary (or an imitation of 
what is good in all these), but which is not religious in the sense of 
teaching self-control, or a reverence either for established institutions 
or the doctrines of revelation, are now united with political discontent, 
and with personal and domestic wretchedness, arising from the pressure 
of want. These are signs of our own times, which contrast un- 
favourably with the social condition of the ancient Greeks ; at least, 
at Athens, where we know it best. Like chemical bodies, which, being 
mixed in certain proportions, explode, they threaten the stability of our 
social fabric. To remove or lessen some of these, and judiciously to 
direct the course of others, is the present and pressing task of the 
statesman, the philosopher, and the divine : and not of them alone — 
every Christian as such should take a share proportionate to his power 
in applying a remedy to our social difficulties : where the happiness of 
all is at stake, the exertions of all are required. 1 

1 Can we venture to assert that the condition of the great mass of the people has 
improved in proportion to our riches ? Are the relations of the employer and the 
employed on so satisfactory a footing as to give no grounds for anxiety ? Has the 
labourer, by whose toil all those vast accumulations of capital are created, enjoyed 
an equitable share of them ? Is not the rate of his remuneration diminishing with 
every step in our progress ? Has not crime during the last half century increased 
fully ten times as fast as the numbers of our population ? We go no further than 
to affirm that, in the experience of our own and the other most civilized nations of 
Europe, the rapid augmentation of wealth has not been attended with a corre- 
sponding increase of rational enjoyment, or of moral improvement, in the mass of 
the community. (Blackwood's Mag. for Dec. 1850, No. 422, p. 674.) 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



DiEDALUS - 

DlPCENUS 
SCYLLIS 

BUPALUS - 

Anthermus 
Phidias 

ALCAMENES 

Agoracritcs 
Critias 
Hegias 
Nestocles - 



Flourished about 
- B. C. 1000 



B.C. 776 
736 



~} B - c - 



»b.c. 450 



Flourished about 

Poltcleitus - 
Myron - 
Agelides 
Callon - 

GORGIAS 

Pragmon 

Pythagoras of Rhetium 
Pythagoras of Samos - 
Lacon - 
Parelius 
Scopas - 
Bryaxis 

TlMOTHEUS - 

Leocharis - 



b. c. 430 



B. c. 400 



In presenting to our readers such details as are to be collected respect- 
ing the sculptors and painters of ancient Greece, we shall not enter 
into a scientific examination of the arts of design, nor pursue, with 
antiquarian minuteness, their history. These objects will be most 
properly reserved for the general articles on Sculpture and Painting, 

2 H 2 



468 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



while it will be necessary here only to trace the progress of these 
embellishments of life, and to develop their principles so far as they 
have been affected by the national feelings of the people among whom 
they were first practised, or have influenced and moulded the cha- 
racter of nations. 

rnfancvof Although the fine arts are not necessarily progressive after they 
the arts. have attained a certain degree of excellence ; and although, after they 
have become the modes of the development of genius, their advances 
are singularly rapid, we shall find their first hints and beginnings 
rude, and bearing slender resemblance, even in kind, to that excellence 
to which they have afterwards given occasion. Painting and Sculpture 
scarcely assumed the degree of arts until long after their origin. The 
earliest traces we can discover of them have reference, indeed, to the 
purposes of religion, to the preservation of mystic truths, or to the 
solemnities of burial. But although the arts were employed on the 
most serious and interesting occasions, they were not, therefore, pro- 
ductive of objects intrinsically beautiful or grand. On the contrary, 
the very symbolical nature they assumed, and the deep thought they 
were intended to embody, often occasioned the creation of monstrous 
and unshapely forms. So long as nations are destitute of a refined 
and delicate sense of the beautiful and the harmonious, the repre- 
sentations by which they perpetuate or body forth the ideas of their 
superstition, or philosophy, will be in themselves merely grotesque, 
if not harsh and revolting. Even the most elevated truths will give 
occasion to the most hideous images, if a previously-formed taste do 
not provide for them elegant and graceful memorials. Thus the 
Indians have employed a figure with three heads to express the three 
great operations which they ascribe to the Divinity — creation, pre- 
servation, and destruction. Abstract truth, however noble, will not 
become visible in the form of beauty, without the aid of a plastic 
imagination to trace out its resemblance to the exquisite in the material 
world, and to mould images which may become its glorious vehicles. 
On the contrary, the imaginative faculties triumph by lending grace 
to the most gloomy views of humanity, making sorrow gentle, affliction 
heroic, and death soft, placid, and reposing. Mortality, so often per- 
sonified as a ghastly spectre, has been represented under the most 
beautiful forms — as a pale, but lovely female — as a smiling angel of 
deliverance — and by a poet of the holiest and gentlest imagination, as 
" a shadow thrown softly and lightly from a passing cloud." 
Art9 of We- find scarcely any traces of the arts of design in the remains of 

design in the vast monarchies of Assyria and Babylon. The wonderful build- 
Baby?on. nd ings, of the extent of which we read so much that borders on the 
incredible, in the accounts of their capital cities, do not appear to have 
been adorned with any peculiar taste, but were grand rather from their 
massiveness and apparent durability than from the grace of their orna- 
ments or the exactness of their proportions. Even amidst the luxuries 
of the Persian empire, painting and sculpture seem to have made very 



EAELY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



469 



insignificant advances. That rich and prodigious monarchy, with all 
its stores of wealth, and the profusion of its barbaric magnificence, 
was compelled to yield to the small republics of Greece, as truly in 
the production of beautiful forms of art as in deeds of military 
prowess. 

Far richer in the curious, at least, if not in the beautiful, are the Arts of 
obscure annals of Egyptian art. The wisdom of the wonderful people f„ E-yj 
who inhabited the fertile banks of the Nile — the ideas of the Divinity 
and of the destinies of man, which had been gathered either by tra- 
ditions from the sons of Noah, or from the meditations of sages — the 
early discoveries of the astronomers, and the wild dreams of magicians 
— and the great events of their far-reaching history, were all expressed 
in some strange, yet appropriate symbols, which remained the objects 
of mysterious wonder or of superstitious adoration when their primitive 
meaning was forgotten. These, as far as we can trace any vestiges 
of their form, had little of intrinsic beauty. The strong and vigorous 
imaginations of the elder time impressed the stamp of reverence on 
the most uncouth, and even frightful, symbols, and required no grand 
or harmonious forms to inspire veneration. But, perhaps, the choicest 
and most curious of arts in Egypt are to be found in the repositories 
of the dead. It seems to have been the popular belief that the spirit, 
when separated by death from the body, previous to its passing into 
other forms, hovered round its former tenement so long as it could 
be preserved from corruption, but quitted it as soon as it was reduced 
to dust. Anxious, therefore, to preserve even this frail and partial 
link of connexion between their earthly and their spiritual nature, the 
Egyptians not only embalmed their dead with a skill which is now 
lost amidst the ravages of time, but placed them in costly sepulchres, 
arrayed them in curious vestments, and exerted all the arts of which 
they were possessed to adorn and dignify their last abode. Their 
corpses, after undergoing the process of the embalmers, were wrapped 
in costly coverings, on winch were depicted their own portraits in the 
freshness of life, surrounded often with the emblems of decay, or 
representations of the instruments by which the mortal part was for 
ages to be preserved entire. These were impressed on a chalky kind 
of paste, which at once served to dress and adorn the corpse, and to 
keep from it all influence of the air from without by which it might 
be affected. Above these were various ornaments and devices — 
ribbons and fillets, hieroglyphical representations and ancient figures 
of some deep meaning, with a covering of linen over the breast, in 
various folds, on which emblematical forms were painted. The coffin 
also, enclosing the whole, was curiously carved and adorned with 
hieroglyphical forms expressive of the course pursued by the deceased 
in his lifetime, of religious rites, or of philosophical mysteries. The 
arts thus employed seem to have been known even before the slavery 
of the Hebrews. Pliny informs us that the Egyptians boasted that 
the art of painting had been practised among them for six thousand 



470 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



years before it engaged the attention of the Greeks, and although this 
assertion was manifestly exaggerated by national pride, it may serve 
to show that the origin of the art was of so high an antiquity that no 
vestige remained of its beginning or of its founders. The patriarch 
Jacob, as we are informed in holy writ, was embalmed by the phy- 
sicians ; and of his pious son we are more minutely told, that " they 
embalmed him, and he was put into a coffin in Egypt." It cannot, 
indeed, be hence concluded, that all the arts of adorning, as well as 
preserving the dead, were then practised as in later times ; but we 
may, at least, discover their early traces in the concise memorial of 
the Hebrew sojourners. We find, from Herodotus, that the ancient 
modes of interment, or rather of preservation, were lost at the time 
of the expedition of Cambyses, in the year of the world 3430, by the 
forcible introduction of Persian manners, and the total extirpation of 
the priesthood, to whom the knowledge of the arts of burial was 
sacredly confined. All the bodies, therefore, which have been dis- 
covered in modern times, were deposited previously to this early 
period, and have, with their fantastic, but significant ornaments, with- 
stood the desolations of time, to which the mightiest structures have 
yielded. It is worthy of observation, that there is a nearer approach 
to the beautiful in the flowers of mortality thus surrounding the dead, 
than in any other relic of Egyptian ingenuity and wisdom ; as though 
the mind had been involuntarily directed to soothing and gentle fancies, 
by the tendernesses and softening recollections which the instances of 
our common destiny revive within us. 
Arts of In the Old Testament we find very early mention of graven, as well 

among as m °lten images. Of the latter description, it is probable, were the 
the Jews. gods of Laban concealed by Eachael, and the idols of Terah. We 
have no means, even of conjecture, as to the degree of symmetry pre- 
served in these efforts of superstition, the nature of the moulds in 
which they were cast, or the instruments by which they were fashioned. 
The children of Israel, during their bondage in Egypt, doubtless 
became acquainted with the arts then in use, which were not exclu- 
sively employed in the services of religion or in the rites of burial. In 
the wilderness, their workmen were immediately inspired by God to 
complete the marvellous symbols of his worship, and the seat which 
he deigned to honour with his immediate presence. The more stately 
and gorgeous temple of Solomon was also built after the pattern pre- 
scribed to David by Jehovah. Thus the arts of architecture and of 
sculpture derived, in a peculiar manner, a right to be regarded as 
divine ; but we are not, therefore, to conclude, that the works thus 
directed by the finger of heaven, were, in themselves, the most ex- 
quisite productions of art. They were designed for loftier objects 
than the mere exhibition of material beauty ; they referred to things 
unseen and eternal. Hence grace of form was regarded as subordinate 
to the secret meaning, or rather became totally insignificant when 
compared with the vast designs of Almighty wisdom, which the cere- 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



471 



monials were intended to prefigure. Who could think of the work- 
manship of the ark, or the forms of the cherubim, when the Glory of 
God was visibly resting over them ? 

The arts of design, with other ornaments of life, were doubtless introduction 
introduced into Greece by the early settlers from Phoenicia and Egypt, of Greek' 683 
It is perfectly manifest that sculpture must have been practised in the sculpture, 
age of Homer, as we find allusions even to minute and curious work- 
manship in his poems. Of this kind the most remarkable instance is 
the description of the shield of Achilles, which some, however, have 
considered as an interpolation by a more recent bard. Eeference is 
often made to the embroidering of figures in tapestry, and even to the 
representation, through this means, of a whole series of events, as 
the siege and destruction of Troy. Shields and bucklers, if we regard 
the testimony of the poets, were constantly adorned with various 
figures in bas-relief, even in the heroic ages. Virgil represents iEneas 
as being deeply affected by observing, at Carthage, representations of 
the fortunes of his country ; but he would scarcely have suppressed 
a beautiful episode because it was inconsistent with the manners of a 
remote age, after the more striking instances in which he has ventured 
to deviate from authentic history. 

As the desire of bodying forth abstract ideas in symbolic forms 
tended to produce scarcely any images but those of deformity among 
the Egyptians, we may probably conjecture that the first efforts of the 
Greeks in sculpture, who derived all the principles of their knowledge 
from Egypt, were retarded by similar causes. In the poetry of 
Hesiod and Homer, we are startled occasionally by mythical repre- 
sentations, in themselves, if realized, disgusting, which had reference 
to philosophical views of the moral or physical world. Briareus, 
with his hundred hands, the emblem of activity and strength; the. 
odious fable of Saturn devouring his children, by which it was intended 
to shadow forth the perpetual decay and renewal of the foliage and 
the verdure, by the constant operation of nature ; the passage in the 
Iliad where Zeus refers to a chain by which the united deities could 
not drag him down, but by which he could raise them to Olympus, 
which has reference to the mysterious connexion that links all creatures 
to each other and the universe to God ; and that in which Here is 
reminded how she was once suspended from the firmament, with 
hands bound and weights affixed to her feet, in which F. Schlegel 
supposes the vaulted covering of the sky to be personified, and the 
poet to refer to some hieroglyphical carving in one of the temples, — 
have been adduced by the author just mentioned, to prove that sym- 
bolical images are hostile to the beauty of imitative representations. 1 
They will also serve to show that such attempts at mere personifica- 
tion with regard only to philosophical purposes, had an unfavourable 
influence on the plastic arts in the earliest ages of Greece. But the 
genius of that happy land soon triumphed over every obstacle. Its 
1 Lectures on the History of Literature, Lecture ii. 



472 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Advantages 
of Greek 
sculptors. 



The ideal 
in Greek 
sculpture. 



exquisite faculties were rapidly unfolded into the fullest and the richest 
bloom. The old mythology, in so far as it was rugged and ungentle, 
was moulded into beauty, and a soft yet roseate hue of youth diffused 
over it. A people who were as fitted to enjoy as they were to 
conquer — whose eyes were ever eager to drink in new loveliness — 
whose ears were open to the most delicate of creation's harmonies — 
whose sense of delight was ever unsated, and fresh for the reception of 
the keen and shivering raptures which the glorious efforts of genius 
were capable of imparting — would scarcely be satisfied till that poetical 
atmosphere was unsullied, from which they imbibed unearthly joys. 
In Sophocles, therefore, whose life comprised the era when Grecian 
freedom, literature, and art, flourished in their utmost perfection, we 
do not find a single image which breaks the harmony, or even unduly 
raises a rebel emotion to the injury of the general and pervading sen- 
timent. We have seen already how poetry became the pure and 
living mirror of the statuary's art ; l and the causes which thus influenced 
the creations of the bard even more directly incited those of the sculptor. 
Indeed the triumph of the latter was more complete, because poetry, 
in becoming allied to the plastic, lost in perspective, while it gained in 
precision ; but sculpture, confined in its very nature within exact 
boundaries, obtained the most decided victoiy. 

The Grecian sculptors not only derived the highest advantages from 
a religion which disposed men to embody ail the charms of nature in 
definite forms, and from a cast of mind requiring for enjoyment the 
distinctness of beauty rather than the visionary and the dim — but had 
all the benefit of studying the human frame in its most perfect freeness, 
elegance, and grace. Not only were the Greeks beautiful by nature, 
but the course of their lives, even from earliest infancy, was calculated 
to improve the form. The public exercises gave, in addition to the 
polished manner and elevated attitude of a citizen of the most glorious 
state on earth, something of the wild and airy grace of an Indian 
bounding in the chase, or of a stag delicately pacing through his native 
forests. The women, although too barbarously confined to domestic 
employment to excel in the expression which mind alone can kindle 
up in the features, were of a high and pure style of beauty, noble in 
outline, glossy and etherial in complexion, and perfect in the finishing. 
The materials for the workmanship of the artist were of the most 
appropriate and beautiful kind. Earth and clay, at first employed in 
framing statues, soon gave place to the white marble of Paros, and 
this yielded, in its turn, to that which was veined and spotted, and to 
jasper. According to Pliny, the artists had even the power of mingling 
different metals to produce fine and delicate shades, and thus to assist 
in expressing various passions and sentiments by a diversity of colours. 

Admirable, however, as were the models which nature afforded 
to the Grecian artists, they did not rest contented with taking exact 

1 Homer and Hesiod, and the Tragic Poets of Greece, in the History of Greek 
Literature in this Encyclopaedia. 



473 



representations even of the most august or beautiful forms. Their 

sense of the beautiful lay too deep to allow them to be satisfied with 

anything visible in the world of external nature, and they thought and 

brooded over the idea of perfection in shape, which they found in 

their own imaginations, till they were capable of presenting it palpably 

to " enchant the world" for ever. Hence their noblest productions 

have given intimations of a beauty more complete than nature itself, in 

the fairest of her works, has supplied. This triumph of art is one of 

the most striking proofs of the high origin and glorious destiny of our 

species. We have left us monuments that can never perish, which 

show that in the human soul there is a sense of loveliness, beyond 

even that everywhere exemplified in the wonderful embellishments of 

this our material abode — that, admirably as the earth and the human 

frame are constructed, there is in the heart of man a reaching forth 

after beauties and sublimities, still more astonishing and harmonious 

than are to be found in these stupendous works ; and that so far is 

our nature from partaking only of the qualities of matter in its grosser 

sense, that it has a power of forming and moulding its particles into \ 

symmetry and grace, which no individual object of nature can rival. 

In the highest works of art, the goodness and the power of Him who 

formed the soul of the workman are, to a philosophic contemplation, 

more signally displayed than in those things of which he is the more 

immediate author; because these are manifestations of that genius 

which he has breathed into the spirit, and which evinces, in all its 

aspirations, a constant struggle towards that state which shall reveal 

the eternal and unfading beauty of the soul, which, even here, catches 

occasional glimpses. — But it is time to advert to the personal history 

of those artists of Greece whose wonderful achievements have called 

forth the preceding reflections. 

DiEDALUS is the first name we meet with among the sculptors of Daedalus. 
Greece. The adventures and the works attributed to him are so mar- E « c - 1000. 
vellous, that it is exceedingly difficult to ascertain how far any state- 
ment respecting him is worthy of reliance. As he flourished in the 
remote period of 1000 years before the Christian era, it is probable 
that his inventions so astonished the ignorant spectators of their effects, 
that they believed him something more than mortal, and readily gave 
credit to every wonderful tale related concerning him. We are told 
that he was descended from Erechtheus, king of Athens. From the 
intimations which can be collected respecting his works, there seems 
no reason to conclude that they were distinguished by peculiar sym- 
metry or grace, or, indeed, that they were admired for any of those 
peculiar excellencies which were so conspicuous in the later style of 
Grecian statuary. He was a mechanist rather than a sculptor — at 
least so far as the latter term implies a possession of the loftier inspi- 
rations of the art. We are not told of the monuments of his skill as 
exquisite in beauty or as awful in grandeur, but as astonishing from 



474 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Daedalus. the curious mechanism by which they were constructed. He was less 
celebrated as a framer of goddesses and of heroes, than as the contriver 
of moving statues, the architect of labyrinths, and the inventor of 
wings. He is said to have discovered the properties of the wedge, 
and other important instruments, to have applied glue to purposes of 
building, and to have given masts and sails to ships. It is, however, 
scarcely probable that all these great improvements in the most useful 
arts were made in the space of a single life, but it is rather to be sup- 
posed that, as the Greeks are said to have attributed the acts of many 
ancient heroes to Heracles, they have ascribed the inventions of a train 
of artists to Dsedalus, especially as we find no celebrated name in the 
annals of the plastic arts for ages after him. The details given of his 
life are evidently, in a great measure, fabulous. He is said to have 
become jealous of his nephew, who seemed fast advancing to an 
equality with himself in ingenuity and skill, and to have been guilty 
of the crime of putting him to death by throwing him from a window. 
For this offence he was condemned by the court of the Areopagi, at 
Athens, but whether to death or only to exile, authors are not agreed. 
In consequence of the sentence, however, he fled, with his son Icarus, 
to Crete, where he was hospitably entertained by Minos, the reigning 
prince, and was employed in the exercise of his favourite arts. Here 
he erected the celebrated labyrinth, which afterwards became his 
prison, for, in consequence of his having lent assistance to the queen, 
Pasiphae, in her scandalous amours, he was confined there, with his 
son, by order of the king. He is said to have effected his escape from 
this place by wings, made of feathers and wax, by the aid of which he, 
together with Icarus, took flight from its summit. The latter, soaring 
too near the sun, found his waxen pinions melt, and fell into the sea, 
which, from his death, was denominated Icarian. But Dsedalus, more 
prudent, arrived in safety at Cumse, where he erected a temple, and 
thence departed to Sicily. In this island he was courteously received 
by Cocalus, king of part of the country, and repaid his hospitality by 
adorning the cities with his works, some of which were remaining in 
the time of Diodorus Siculus. Minos, in the mean time, resolved that 
the object of his revenge should not ultimately escape him, and there- 
fore commenced warlike operations against Cocalus for having afforded 
him an asylum. This step succeeded ; for the Sicilian king, afraid of 
the power of Minos, caused his guest to be murdered, in order to 
deliver his kingdom from the impending danger. The fable respect- 
ing the mode of the flight of Dsedalus from Crete has been explained 
to signify that he escaped by means of a vessel with sails, which, if not 
used before, might, in that age, well be regarded as a description of 
wings. That part of it which relates to the death of his son is mani- 
festly invented by the poets. 

It appears that Daedalus wrought, for the most part, in wood. He 
seems, however, to have occasionally made use of metals, which were 
employed as materials of sculpture in very early periods. Pliny 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



475 



informs us that he left two brazen figures of youths drying themselves Daedalus, 
after bathing. He is said to have introduced quicksilver into the 
cavities of some of his images, so as to cause them to assume grotesque 
motions and attitudes, which would, of course, be attributed, by those 
who were unacquainted with the artifice, to supernatural powers. It 
appears that, in comparatively modern times, there were works 
ascribed to Daedalus in existence. A noble portico to the temple of 
Hephaistos, at Memphis, was shown as his workmanship. Pausanias 
affirms that nine of his pieces were remaining in Greece in his age, 
which were rude, and destitute of grace, but had an impress of divinity 
upon them. The chief of these seems to have been a wooden 
Heracles, which is repeatedly alluded to by Pausanias. As there are 
several small bronzes now in existence which represent this hero, with 
every appearance of the rudeness of great antiquity, it is not impossible 
that they may be copied from this old relic of the earliest of the Grecian 
sculptors. A chorus, in white stone, of youths and girls dancing hand 
in hand, was alleged by the Gnossians, who possessed it, to be his 
work, and t\\e same is mentioned in the eighteenth book of the Iliad. 
Endaeus, his pupil, made a statue of Athene, which Pausanias saw in 
the Acropolis, at Athens. 

After Daedalus and Endaeus, scarcely any celebrated name occurs in Dipcenus and 
the annals of Grecian art for a very long period. At length, Dipcenus j^^i^g 
and Scyllis, both natives of Crete, in the year before Christ 776, are * ' 
said first to have executed works in marble. Before this time, statues 
were, for the most part, made of clay or of wood, though it is certain 
that the ancients had previously made use of more costly materials. 
Daedalus, we have seen, sometimes wrought in brass, and even in 
stone ; and from the Odyssey, it is certain, that, at least in the age 
of Homer, men had begun to carve out ornaments in ivory. Up to 
this period, the plastic arts seem to have made very little progress 
towards perfection. The first statues had all the air of savage nature : 
the limbs appear muscular and turgid, the loins narrow, the lips thin, 
the eyes small, the chin pointed, the corners of the mouth turned 
upwards, and the lower limbs in an advanced position ; but the whole 
animated with a kind of wild and rude energy, the expression of bodily 
power and a resolute uncultivated spirit. Many of these indications 
of the infancy of the art seem to have marked the productions of the 
first artificers in marble. The figures were of the same rude cast, the 
draperies fell in perpendicular folds, and the whole appeared destitute 
of ease ; but there was great nicety observed in the finishing of par- 
ticular parts, especially of the curls or knots, in which it was usual to 
represent the hair as confined. Dipcenus and Scyllis went to Sicyon, 
to exercise their art, as that place was the great workshop of Greece. 
Here they were employed in framing images of the gods for the orna- 
ment of the public temples ; but after they had made considerable 
progress, they disputed with the magistrates who employed them 



476 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



respecting the terms of their remuneration, and consequently left the 
statues unfinished, and repaired to iEtolia. Shortly afterwards Sicyon 
was afflicted with famine, and the people sought advice from the 
oracle of Apollo, at Delphi, as to the means they should use to avert 
their fate. They received for answer that Dipoenus and Scyllis must 
finish the images which they had begun, and immediately sent entreaties 
to the artists for aid, offering them the most liberal remuneration if 
they would help them. Thus incited, they returned and completed 
the statues of Apollo, Artemis, Heracles, and Athene ; the last of 
which was afterwards struck by lightning. It is said, by Pliny, that 
the works of Dipoenus abounded in Ambracia, Argos, and Cleone, 
" in which cities a man could not see a corner without them." 

Bupaiusand At the distance of forty years from the time of Dipoenus and 
B^TSl' ^ c y ms ' Bupaltjs and Anthermus, brothers, of the isle of Chios, be- 
came celebrated for their workmanship in marble. They seem to have 
descended from a family of sculptors, as their great-grandfather Melas, 
their grandfather Miciades, and their father Anthermus, all practised 
the same art. Of their ancestors we know nothing but the names. 
The brothers seem to have, for the most part, wrought in concert, 
and to have succeeded in framing many celebrated statues. Among 
their joint productions was a ludicrous representation of a contem- 
porary poet, Hipponax, who was greatly deformed in his person, and 
who is said to have revenged the insult by so bitter a satire on the 
caricaturists, that they put an end to their lives by hanging them- 
selves in vexation. But the account given of these artists by Pliny 
disproves the story of this tragical catastrophe, as he represents them 
as not only surviving the attack of their poetical foe, but as subse- 
quently employed in framing several famous pieces of statuary. One 
of these was a figure of Artemis, in the temple of Chios, w T hich, being 
placed in a very elevated position, seemed to wear a frowning aspect 
to those who were entering, and to smile on those who were quitting 
the portal. These statuaries appear to have formed a high estimate 
of their own and their father's skill, for they placed inscriptions on 
numerous pieces of their workmanship, in Delos, and islands adjacent 
to Chios, intimating that Chios was not only remarkable for its vines, 
which yielded fruit of peculiar excellence, but for Anthermus and his 
sons, who made so many beautiful and curious images. They 
wrought, for the most part, in Parian marble. It is said that, in 
cutting asunder this substance in the quarry, a perfect image, as of 
Silenus, was discovered by some of the ancient workmen. Bupalus, 
however, framed statues in gold of the Graces, which were placed in 
the temple of Nemesis, at Smyrna. At Jasius, an Artemis was 
exhibited which was the workmanship of the brothers. Some of 
their works were in the possession of Attalus, and others were 
placed at Rome, on the Palatine hill, where they adorned the temple 
of Apollo. 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



477 



After these sculptors, a long and dreary interval occurs in the Phidias and 
history of the art. We are unable to trace its slow progress until g 8 ^ h |.gy 
that period when a single mighty genius not only was able infinitely 
to surpass all that was done before him, but to raise the art itself to 
a height of which his predecessors could have entertained no concep- 
tion. Indeed Phidias, of whom we are now to speak, not only by 
his fame eclipsed the faint glimmerings of renown which attended the 
names of those who preceded him, but rendered all inquiry into their 
exertions matter rather of antiquarian curiosity than of philosophical 
investigation. He was the iEschylus of the plastic arts. Like the 
great tragedian, if he did not actually invent his art, he first disco- 
vered in it capabilities for the highest expression of mental sublimity, 
and made it a vehicle for the development of the noblest ideas and 
loftiest conceptions. His forerunners appear to have done little more 
than to have framed the weapons, by the aid of which he was able to 
manifest the most awe-breathing sublimity of thought which human 
skill has been able to embody in definite and circumscribed forms. 

This wonderful artist flourished about 450 years before the Chris- Genius of 
tian aera, at Athens. Nothing authentic is related respecting his phlthas - 
early days. We find him exerting his art at the time when Grecian 
freedom was in its freshest bloom, after the overthrow of the Persian 
invaders. It is said that he first practised the art of a painter, and 
probably derived from this circumstance that nice judgment respecting 
effect for which he was afterwards conspicuous. He brought indeed 
to his profession a knowledge of all the finer parts of science which 
could tend to dignify and enhance it. With the most exquisite har- 
monies of poetry, and the most gorgeous fictions of mythology, he was 
no less familiar than with geometry, optics, and history. From 
Homer, whose works he must have deeply studied, he drew those 
images of greatness which he afterwards moulded in earthly materials 
with a kindred spirit. His skill in optics is attested by a curious 
circumstance in his life. It was intended to place a statue of Athene 
on a column of great height; and Phidias, and a contemporary artist, 
named Alcamenes, were each employed in framing images for the 
purpose, the best of which was to be chosen by the citizens. On 
inspection, the preference was universally given to the work of the 
latter, which appeared neatly and elegantly finished, while that of the 
former appeared rude and sketchy, with coarse and ill-proportioned 
features. When, however, at the request of Phidias, the two statues 
were successively exhibited on the elevation for which they were 
destined, all the minute beauties of his rival's work disappeared, 
together with the seeming defects in his own, and that image which 
was before despised seemed perfect in its proportions, and was 
surveyed with delight and wonder. 

The genius of Phidias was highly, if not duly appreciated by his Works of 
fellow-citizens. He was employed in the delightful office of forming Ph,dias - 
a statue from a block of marble found in the camp of the Persians 



478 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Phidias. after the battle of Marathon, which they had brought with them as 
materials for a trophy of the victory they anticipated as certain. In 
the true spirit of a Greek, he framed hence a most animated figure of 
Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, in commemoration of that dis- 
graceful overthrow with which the impious attacks on freedom had 
been so gallantly visited. From the spoils taken from the same 
invaders he also made a statue of Athene, for the Platgeans, the body 
of which was formed of gilded wood, and the face, hands, and feet of 
the marble dug from the Pentelic hill in the Athenian territory. 

But the circumstance which, by a singular felicity not often 
accorded to genius, elicited the powers of Phidias, was the coincidence, 
in point of time, of the full maturity of his talents with the muni- 
ficent administration of Pericles. The city of Athens having been, in 
a great measure, destroyed by the Persians, the opportunity was 
eagerly seized by this magnificent projector, of adorning it with far 
more splendid edifices than those which had been overthrown by the 
violence of the invaders. Intent on this great national design, he saw 
with eagerness, in the genius of Phidias, the means of giving form, 
shape, and completeness to the most glorious of his conceptions. 
He accordingly appointed this great sculptor the general superin- 
tendent of all the public works then in progress, both of architecture 
and statuary; and well, indeed, did the event sanction his choice. 
The buildings reared under the direction of Phidias, though finished 
within a short period, seemed built for ages ; and, as observed by 
Plutarch, had the venerable air of antiquity when newly completed, 
and retained all the freshness of youth after they had stood for ages. 

The Of these works the most celebrated was the temple of Athene — - 

art enon. ^ e guardian deity of Athens — which was built on the Acropolis. 

This edifice had been previously called the Hecatompedon, from the 
circumstance of its having measured a hundred feet square ; but after 
it was rebuilt, was denominated the Parthenon, being now of much 
larger dimensions. 

Plutarch, after stating that Phidias was appointed to the general 
superintendence of all the public works, informs us that the temple of 
the Parthenon was rebuilt by Callicrates and Ictinus. He further 
states, that the long wall of the city, which Socrates says he heard 
Pericles propose to the people, was built by the former of these 
architects. It has hence been inferred by some that Phidias had no 
personal or immediate concern in any parts of the workmanship, but 
that he is excluded from a share in the work of sculpture by the 
express language of Plutarch. This inference, however, seems scarcely 
warranted by the text, and is contrary to other evidence. It is true 
that the professions of statuary and architect were frequently united in 
Greece, especially in the earlier times ; but it is exceedingly singular 
th at, had this been the case with Callicrates and Ictinus, and especially 
had they been the authors of works so exquisite as those which 
adorned the Parthenon, their names should never have been mentioned 



EAELY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



479 



by Pliny among the celebrated sculptors of the age of Phidias. Ictinus Phidias, 
seems to have attained a higher eminence in his art than Callicrates, 
and was employed in constructing the temple of Phygalia while his 
contemporary builder was engaged in raising the wall of Athens, a 
work necessarily of much more massiveness than taste. The marbles 
of the Phygalian temple have been regarded by the most competent 
judges as inferior to! the metopes of the Parthenon, now deposited in 
the British Museum, and are probably executed by a different hand. 
But there is no evidence that Ictinus framed even these ; and, there- 
fore, no inference can hence 'be drawn in favour of the hypothesis 
that he completed those which adorned the temple of Athene. It 
cannot, however, for a moment be supposed that all the ornaments of 
the latter edifice were entirely the workmanship of Phidias. It is 
most probable that he formed the designs for the whole ; that Calli- 
crates and Ictinus carried into effect the architectural part of them ; 
and that Alcamenes, and others his pupils and contemporaries, exe- 
cuted the larger part of the sculpture, while he occasionally touched 
and finished the more important figures, and overlooked the process 
by which his noble conceptions were embodied and rendered immortal. 

All writers agree in regarding the statue of Athene, which was statue of 
erected within the temple, as the entire production of Phidias. It ^the* 
was, indeed, the most celebrated of all his works, if we except the Parthenon. 
Olympian Zeus, at Elis. Independently of the workmanship, it 
was of noble dimensions and of the most costly materials. It was 
twenty-six cubits, or thirty-nine feet in height, and formed of ivory 
and gold, being, most probably, composed originally of the former, 
and overlaid, at least in parts, by the latter. The goddess was 
represented in a noble attitude, erect, clothed in a tunic reaching to 
the feet. In her hand she brandished a spear, and at her feet lay her 
buckler and a dragon, of admirable execution, supposed to represent 
Erichthonius. On the middle of her helmet a sphynx was carved, and 
on each of its sides a griffin. On the aegis were displayed a Medusa's 
head, and a figure of Victory. This work was not only grand and 
striking in itself, but contained on its various parts curious specimens 
of minute sculpture in bas-relief, which Phidias is said to have 
brought to perfection. On the convex part of the shield was repre- 
sented the contest of the Athenians with the Amazons — on its con- 
cave the battle of the giants and the gods — the slippers were carved 
with views of the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapithae — and 
on the base was figured out the fable of the birth of Pandora, with 
images of twenty deities. Cicero, Pliny, Plutarch, Pausanias, and 
other illustrious writers of antiquity, in whose times this noble piece 
of workmanship was in existence, speak of it with unqualified rapture. 
After the execution of such a statue, the artist could not expect to 
enjoy repose at Athens. The flattering envy and hatred which 
almost uniformly attested excellence in that city, speedily attacked him. 
He was charged by Menon, one of his pupils, or workmen, with 



480 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Phidias. having embezzled part of the forty-four talents of gold with which he 
had been furnished to decorate the statue of Athene in the Parthenon. 
But Pericles, having foreseen the danger to which his superiority- 
would expose him, had advised him so to employ the gold that it 
might readily be separated from its place, and, on its being taken 
down and weighed, it was found perfectly entire. (See Pericles.) 
This, however, was not the only charge with which Phidias had to 
contend. According to Plutarch, he had engraven his name on the 
statue in the Parthenon ; but Cicero informs us, that not being per- 
mitted to inscribe his name upon its base, he introduced his own 
figure among the decorations of the shield. It appears, indeed, from 
Plutarch's life of Pericles, that he carved his own figure and that of 
his munificent patron on the shield, representing the former as an old 
man, bald-headed, lifting a stone with both his hands, and the latter 
fighting with an Amazon, and so raising his arm, to throw a javelin, 
that part of his face was hidden. This circumstance was brought 
forward as a serious accusation against him : and, according to Plu- 
tarch, he was, in consequence, thrown into prison, where he died, as 
some supposed, a natural death, but, as others conceived, by poison. 
At least, the latter hypothesis was supported by those who wished to 
throw odium on Pericles, by causing it to be suspected that this 
event was accomplished by his connivance. The whole story, how- 
ever, appears, from the greater number of authorities, to be founded 
in mistake ; and from these it seems that the artist withdrew in 
disgust to Elis, where he framed the Olympian Zeus. Menon, his 
base accuser, was exempted from taxes by a public decree, and the 
generals of the republic were ordered to afford him their especial pro- 
tection. The conduct of the Athenians on this occasion, although it 
admits of no excuse, may be explained, in some degree, on the 
supposition that their envy of surpassing genius and success was 
heightened by their disposition to extend to Phidias part of that 
odium which at one period fell on Pericles. Indeed, the artist had 
been previously accused of suffering his house to be made the scene of 
the debaucheries of his patron ; though, for the honour of genius, it 
is to be hoped that the charge was destitute of foundation, 
statue of Animated rather than subdued by the ingratitude of his country- 
oiympius men ' -Phidias laboured to surpass the greatest works with which he 
had adorned Athens. With this view he framed the statue of Zeus 
Olympius for the Eleans, and completely succeeded even in excelling 
his own Athene in the Parthenon. Lucian informs us that, in order 
to render this work as perfect in detail as it was noble in conception 
and outline, he exposed it, while in progress, to the public view, and, 
concealing himself near it, heard every criticism made by the spec- 
tators, and profited by every suggestion which he considered as useful. 
This statue was" sixty feet in height, and is represented, in the enthu- 
siastic descriptions of those who saw it, as embodying the sublime 
picture which Homer has given of the monarch of the heavens. It 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



481 



is said, indeed, that when the artist himself was asked whence he had Phidias, 
derived the idea of this his grand effort, he replied by reciting the Zeus* a Ue ° 
verses of the poet, in which he represents the divinity as assenting to °iy m pi» s - 
the request of Thetis : — 

C H, xa) xvavinffiv \<7f o<p^v<ri vivai Kpovitvv 

' Xfju^potriai 3' oipa. •^olItix.i 1-jrippuira.vro olvccxro; 

Kgarof air xQavdroio- psyav iXiXi^iv 'Okvprfov. 1 

Never was bard illustrated by so noble a commentary! Of this 
mighty work Pausanias has left us, fortunately, a minute description. 
It represented Zeus as seated on his throne, which was made of 
gold and ivory ; his brows surrounded with a crown of olive ; his 
right hand holding a figure of Victory, of ivory and gold, bearing a 
small fillet; his left wielding the sceptre, on the top of which was 
the golden eagle ; his robe of massive gold, curiously wrought with 
various figures, especially of lilies; and his sandals of gold. The 
throne was inlaid with all kinds of precious materials — ebony, ivory, 
and gems — and adorned with various pieces of sculpture. In the 
front of the throne was a representation of the Sphynx carrying off the 
Theban youths ; beneath these, that of the fate of Niobe and her 
children ; and on the frame, joining the feet, the contest of Heracles 
with the Amazons, embracing twenty-nine figures, among which was 
one intended to represent Theseus. On the hinder feet of the throne 
were four Victories, as treading in the dance. On the back of the 
throne, above the head of the divinity, were figures of the Hours and 
Graces ; and on the seat, Theseus warring with the Amazons, and 
lions of gold. Its base, which was of gold, represented various 
groups of the divinities, among which were Zeus and Here, with 
the Graces leading on Hermes and Hestia ; Eros receiving Aphrodite 
from the sea ; Apollo with Artemis : Athene with Heracles ; and, 
below these, Poseidon, and the Moon in her chariot. The whole was 
encircled by a wall, on which were painted various grand and 
mythical pictures by Panaenus, the brother of Phidias. On the base 
of the statue, as if in reproach of the Athenian jealousies, was the 
inscription — " Phidias, tlie Athenian, the son of Charmides, made me." 
Of the whole work Quinctilian observes, that it even added new 
feelings to the religion of Greece : " Ejus pulchritudo adjecisse aliquid 
etiam receptae religioni videtur, adeo majestas operis deum aaquavit." 2 
It was confessedly without a rival in ancient times, all writers speaking 
of it as a work which none would dare even to imitate. The temple 
prepared for its reception seems to have been not unworthy of the 

1 He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows, 
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god : 
High heaven with trembling the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to the centre shook. 

Pope's Homer's Iliad, i. 527. 
2 " Its beauty seemed to have added somewhat even to the received religion, so 
far did the majesty of the work equal the divinity." 

[H. G.] 2 I 



482 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Phidias, work. It was built in the Doric style, by Libon, an Elean. In the 
front pediment was a representation of the contest in the chariot-race 
between Pelops and CEnomaus; on the back, the fight of the Cen- 
taurs and Lapithse, with the nuptials of Pirithoiis ; and in the interior 
were many works of Alcamenes, depicting the labours of Heracles. 
With this, his masterpiece, the great artist finished his labours. The 
manner of his death, if the account of Plutarch be rejected, is alto- 
gether unknown. The place at Elis in which he had wrought was 
long after preserved with care, and visited by travellers with deep 
veneration; and the Eleans, grateful for the honour which he had 
conferred on their country, gave a perpetual salary to his descendants, 
on condition that they should preserve the work they so highly 
valued, from every description of injury, 
other statues Besides these most celebrated works of Phidias, several very dis- 
of Phidias, tinguished compositions are mentioned by ancient writers. He made 
a statue of Athene, in brass, so beautiful that it was regularly 
named by the distinguishing epithet of KaXkifioptyoQ. 1 He also 
formed another image of the same goddess, which JEmilius Paulus 
dedicated in the temple of Fortune, at Rome. A figure of a key- 
bearer, two images in cloaks or mantles, and a naked Colossus, were 
also attributed to him. He framed likewise a figure of an Amazon, 
called Eucnemon, from the extreme beauty of the leg. A doubt 
has been raised by some whether Phidias ever wrought in marble ; 
but there seems little reason for this surmise, for Pliny not only 
expressly numbers him among the gravers in marble, but represents 
him as having been the sculptor of a celebrated statue of Aphrodite, in 
the forum of Octavia, at Rome. It is asserted also, by the same autho- 
rity, that he was the instructor of Alcamenes, whose works in marble 
were exceedingly numerous at Athens, and were supposed to have 
been, in many instances, touched with the hand of the great master. 

Phidias appears to have been the first sculptor who raised his 
works to the ideal. Cicero philosophically eulogizes him for this 
excellence, by which, in reality, he raised sculpture from a mechanical 
drudgery, to share in the glories of the most exalted poetry, and even 
to mould and influence the national imagination of Greece : " Phidias 
cum faceret Jovis formam aut Minervse, non contemplabatur aliquem 
a quo similitudinem duceret : sed ipsius in mente insidebat species 
pulchritudinis eximia quaedam, quam intuens, in eaque defixus ad illius 
similitudinem artem et animum dirigebat." 2 In the whole character 
of his works, Phidias seems to have borne a striking resemblance to 
iEschylus. Like the boldest of the tragic poets, he not only formed 
the vastest conceptions, but chose for his groundwork the grandest 

1 The Beautiful. 

2 " When Phidias intended to make a statue of Jove or of Minerva, he was accus- 
tomed to take no substantial original for his model ; but there presided in the con- 
ception of the artist a certain indescribable form of beauty, and with his mental 
gaze fixed on this, he directed the energies of his mind and art to produce a faith- 
ful likeness." — Cic. in Orat. n. 9. 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



483 



materials. Like him, also, he excelled rather in the representation of Phidias, 
gods than of men, and delighted in presenting his images as apart from 
the world of ordinary existence. The repose of his figures was that 
of conscious omnipotence. He aimed not at expressing the passions 
of humanity, or at exhibiting the charms of beauty in motion, but 
directed all his exertions to the embodying ideas of the sternest gran- 
deur. His whole soul was filled with the gorgeous visions of the 
elder time — the dark tales of old gigantic strength — the feelings of a 
power and a glory departed. He caught the spirit of ages long 
before his sera, to transmit it to generations after him by the most 
durable of earthly memorials. 

The principal sculptors of the age of Phidias, or rather of the Alcamenes. 
earlier part of it, whom it is probable he employed in adorning the B. C. 450. 
public works at Athens, were Alcamenes, Agoracritus, Critias, Nes- 
tocles, and Hegias. There are, however, occasional inconsistencies 
in the accounts given by Pliny respecting the precise time when some 
of these flourished ; as, although he expressly makes Alcamenes con- 
temporary with the earlier part of the age of Phidias, he represents 
him as having been his pupil, and hence draws an inference that 
Phidias wrought in marble. If we suppose this to be the same 
Alcamenes whom Phidias overcame in the contest by his superior 
skill in optics, as we have related, the circumstance will tend to shake 
the assertion that he was the pupil of his adversary, although made so 
positively by Pliny : for it seems most probable that the circumstance 
occurred at the commencement of the career of Phidias, before his 
genius had been fully developed, and certainly before he was 
appointed to superintend all the public works by Pericles. Hence it 
is scarcely to be believed that he had completed the instruction of a 
disciple, so as to enable him to enter into competition with himself, 
or that, had he done so, he would have neglected to impart to him 
that portion of his knowledge which related to the alteration in the 
appearance of objects which distance and position produce. It 
appears, however, from every authority, that Alcamenes was one of 
the most distinguished of the contemporaries of Phidias. We have 
seen that part of the decorations in the temple at Elis, so renowned, 
as containing the Olympian Zeus, was from the hand of this artist. 
His most celebrated work was a statue of Aphrodite, which was 
placed without the walls of the city of Athens, to which Phidias is 
supposed to have given the finishing touch. Besides his works in 
marble, he also made a Panthalon, in brass, which was called Eucri- 
nomenos. As we are told by Pliny that a great number of his works 
were remaining in Athens, it is very probable that he had a large 
share in adorning the Parthenon, under the direction of Phidias. 

Agoracritus was, according to Pliny, a pupil of Phidias, and Agoracritus. 
exceedingly beloved by his master, who carried his affection for him 
so> £ar, as to allow some of his own pieces to be regarded as the pro- 

2 i 2 



484 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Agoraeritus. ductions of his favoured disciple. He was a Parian by birth, and 
wrought in the marble for which his native island was famous. He 
had a contest with Alcamenes, who is represented by Pliny as 
having been his fellow-pupil. They each endeavoured to produce the 
most excellent statue of Aphrodite, and the latter was declared to be 
successful — not on account of the real superiority of his work, but 
because the Athenians chose to favour their own citizen rather than a 
native of Paros. Indignant at the result, the unsuccessful candidate 
is said, when he disposed of the statue made on the occasion, to have 
annexed to the sale the condition that it should never be placed in 
the city of Athens. In further revenge, he named it Nemesis, and 
allowed it to be placed in a village called Rhamnus, within the terri- 
tory of A ttica. M. Varro preferred this work to all other statues. Its 
sculptor was also celebrated for an excellent image of Cybele, placed 
in a temple at Athens, dedicated to the mother of the divinities. 
Critias, _ Of Critias, Nestocles, and Hegias, little is known. The latter 

Hegias! eS ' made statues of Athene, of Castor and Pollux, which were placed 
before the temple of Zeus the Thunderer; and figures of youths 
called Celetizontes. 

In the latter part of the age of Phidias a considerable number of 
artists arose of great excellence, the chief of whom were Polycleitus, 
Myron, Agelides, Callon, Gorgias, Phragmon, two sculptors named 
Pythagoras, Lacon, and Parelius. Of these, Polycleitus appears to 
have been the ruling spirit. 

Polvcleitus. Polycleitus was born at Sicyon, the great school of the plastic 
b. c. 430. arts, and flourished about four hundred and thirty years before the 
Christian sera. As Phidias has been denominated the iEschylus, this 
artist may, with propriety, be regarded as the Sophocles, of sculpture. 
He perfected that which his great predecessor had invented. He did 
not possess the grandeur of imagination of Phidias, or even attempt, 
like him, to create the images of the most powerful deities. It seems, 
indeed, that he excelled less in representing the robust and manly 
graces of the human frame, than in the sweet, tender, and unconscious 
loveliness of childhood. In his works, however, he manifests an 
equal aspiration after ideal beauty with that of Phidias. He seems 
to have laboured to render his statues perfect in their kind, by the 
most scrupulous care in the finishing. Hence he is said to have 
observed, that " the work becomes most difficult when it comes to 
the nail." He framed a statue of a Persian life-guard so marvel- 
lously exact in its proportions, and so exquisite in its symmetry, that 
it was called the Rule> and became the model whence artists had 
their canons of criticism, which determined the correctness of a work. 
He executed also an image of a youth binding a fillet, of so perfect a 
beauty, that it was valued at the immense price of a hundred talents. 
Another of his celebrated works represented two children playing at 
dice, which was regarded with the highest admiration at Rome, where 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



485 



it was in the possession of the Emperor Titus. His Hermes be- Polycleitus. 
longed to Lysimachus, and his figure of Heracles lifting Antaeus was 
placed in Kome. He also produced an image of a voluptuary, called 
Antenor, languidly reclining on a couch, which was held in the 
highest esteem. 

It seems that Polycleitus was, during his lifetime, preferred even to 
Phidias. This appears from a similar circumstance to that by which 
Themistocles was shown to be entitled to the highest honour among 
the Greeks who fought at Salamis. It was resolved to place several 
statues of Amazons in the temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, and all the 
great artists of Greece were consulted as to their opinion who among 
them had the highest merit. Each named himself first, and the man 
whom he regarded as the next in desert, second, — and he who was 
found to have most of these second votes was declared victorious. 
By this mode of ascertaining the relative degree of renown enjoyed by 
each, Polycleitus obtained the first place, Phidias the second, and 
Ctesilas and Cylon the third and fourth. We can scarcely, however, 
regard this judgment as decisive. The Athenians were always jealous 
of the loftiest degrees of excellence ; and it is not probable the imme- 
diate competitors for applause in the same art should have been 
impartial. If we form a judgment from the allusions of the orators 
and poets of antiquity to the works of ancient art, we shall find that 
those of Phidias made the deepest impression on those minds which 
may well be supposed to have had the truest sense and feeling of beauty 
and grandeur. 

Polycleitus, himself, on one occasion, showed how little deference 
he felt for the fickle judgment of his fellow-citizens. Being employed 
in framing a statue, he freely permitted every one to inspect it, and to 
give advice as to the form and disposition of every part, and followed 
the councils thus ofTered him. In the mean time he privately com- 
pleted another figure on the same subject, according to his own 
unbiassed opinion, and when both were completed, exhibited them 
together, and asked which of them was the finest. All joined in 
approving the latter, and condemning the former, when the artist tri- 
umphantly replied, " That which you reprove is your own work — that 
which you admire is mine." 

Polycleitus is said to have carried alto-relievo, which Phidias invented, 
to perfection. He discovered the happiest mode of balancing figures 
on one leg, and is said to have been so partial to this mode of repre- 
senting the human form, that he almost invariably adopted it in his 
statues. He is accused by Varro of too great uniformity in his figures, 
and the constant repetition of the same idea. Nothing could exceed 
the exactness of symmetry with which he framed his statues, but it 
seems that they were destitute of passion, sentiment, and expression. 
It is singular that, notwithstanding the refinement, the extreme polish, 
and exactness of finishing with which his works were in general 
elaborated, he represented the hair in knots, after the fashion of the 



486 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Myron. 

b. c. 430. 



Pythagoras 
of Samos. 



Bryaxis, 

Timotheus, 

Leochares, 

Pvlus. 

B*. C. 400. 



ancient sculptors. These defects, however, seem to have derogated 
but little from his fame, either in his own age or in after-times. 

Myron, the pupil of Agelides, was not so remarkable for any one 
style of composition as his predecessors and contemporaries, but 
appears to have been of a lively and versatile genius. He was a native 
of Eleutheria, but regarded as an Athenian, because his countrymen 
had sought and been allowed the protection of Athens. He wrought 
both in brass and marble. He seems to have been able to give to his 
work an air of great facility and ease ; for it is said of him, by Statius 
Papinius, that he played rather than wrought with his materials. The 
particular work which contributed the most to his renown, was a 
brazen heifer, which became the subject of numerous Greek epigrams, 
some of which are preserved in the Anthology. The other statues 
by him, which were most celebrated, were the Discobolus, ascertained 
by an antique gem, and the description of Quinctilian, who apologizes 
for its forced attitude, and of which there is an ancient copy in the 
British Museum ; the tomb of a grasshopper and locust, in brass, 
mentioned by Erinna, the poetess ; Perseus slaying Medusa : a satyr 
admiring the music of the pipes ; sawyers, called Pristse ; the figure 
of an old drunken woman, in marble, made for the people of Smyrna, 
and held in the highest estimation ; a statue of Athene ; the Delphic 
Panthali and Pancratiastae ; a Heracles, which was afterwards con- 
veyed to Rome, and placed in the great circus of Pompey ; and an 
Apollo, which Marc Antony took from Ephesus, and Augustus Caesar 
restored, in consequence of receiving a warning to that effect in a 
dream. Pythagoras of Rhetium is said to have surpassed Myron in 
the figure of a Pancratias, for the temple of Apollo, at Delphi. 

Pythagoras of Samos was another celebrated sculptor of this period. 
He is said to have been originally a painter, and hence acquired the 
faculty of giving accurate resemblances of individual faces, in which he 
was singularly successful. He made a figure of an old man, and seven 
naked statues of the goddesses, which have been spoken of in terms of 
high eulogy. Respecting the other sculptors of this time, we have 
scarcely any distinct information. 

Scopas, though enumerated by Pliny among those who were con- 
temporary with Phidias, in the latter part of his life, seems, accord- 
ing to the best authorities, not to have flourished till a somewhat later 
period. He united the professions of architect and statuary, and was 
equally eminent in each. He was a native of the isle of Pharos, 
which seems to have been almost as productive in artists as in the 
materials of sculpture. It was his fortune to be employed as one of 
the four artists who were engaged by Artemisia, queen of Caria, in 
framing that splendid monument to the memory of her husband, 
Mausolus, in the city of Halicarnassus, which was ranked among the 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



487 



seven wonders of the world. Each of the builders chose one of the Scopas. 
sides, which he undertook to complete ; Bryaxis chose the north ; 
Tirnotheus, the south; Leochares, the west; and Scopas, the east. 
Before the work was completed, Artemisia died, but the architects 
determined, for the sake of their own fame, to finish it. A fifth, 
indeed, came, to crown the whole, with his assistance. This was 
Pylus, who carried up the sides in a pyramidical form, and placed at 
the top, figures of a chariot and four horses. The circumference was, 
however, only a hundred and eleven feet, and the height a hundred and 
forty ; so that it must have been the exquisite beauty of its ornaments, 
rather than the massiveness of its size, which rendered it an object of 
so high admiration. Scopas was appointed also to contribute one of 
the columns to the temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, and that which he 
framed was regarded as the most beautiful of the whole. He seems, 
indeed, to have been scarcely inferior to Polycleitus or Myron. His 
statues were numerous : among the most remarkable of them were the 
images of Aphrodite, Python, and Phaeton, which weie held in the 
greatest veneration by the Samothracians. Many of his compositions 
were among the noblest ornaments of Rome in the davs of Pliny. An 
Apollo of his workmanship stood on the Palatine Mount; a Hestia 
seated, with two female attendants sitting on the ground beside her, 
adorned the gardens of Servilius ; and a group of the same description, 
as well as a virgin bearing on her head a basket of relics, were pre- 
served in the collections of Asinius Pollio. His statues also of 
Poseidon, of Thetis, and Achilles, of the Nereids riding on the mightiest 
monsters of the deep, great fishes, tritons, and a whole train of marine 
creations attending Phorcus, were highly prized, and placed in the 
chapel of Cneius Domitius, in the Flaminian circus. A colossal image 
of Ares, and an exquisite statue of Aphrodite, were also greatly ad- 
mired at Rome ; the latter was preferred to a similar statue by Praxitiles, 
which has been thought to have furnished the original idea of the 
Venus de Medicis. It is uncertain whether the celebrated group of Group of 
the Niobe is the production of Scopas, or belongs to a later age. It JJjfjj^ 
is one of the clearest manifestations of that deep and intense feeling of children, 
beauty which the Grecian artists delighted to preserve in the midst of 
suffering. The internal harmony of this divine work has thus been 
developed by a celebrated critic, who seems to have caught the true 
spirit of Grecian poetry and art: 1 — 

" In the group of Niobe there is the most perfect mixture of terror 
and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and the mouth half 
open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath of Heaven. 
The daughter clinging in the agonies of death to the bosom of her 
mother, in her infantine innocence, can have no other fear than for 
herself ; the innate impulse of self-preservation was never represented 
in a manner more tender and affecting. Can there, on the other hand, 
be exhibited to the senses a more beautiful image of self-devoting 
1 Schlegel'a Lectures on the Drama, Lecture iii. 



488 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



Scopas. heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body forward, that, 
if possible, she may alone receive the destructive bolt? Pride and 
repugnance are melted down in the most ardent maternal love. The 
more than earthly dignity of the features are the less disfigured by 
pain, as from the quick repetition of the shocks, she appears, as in the 
fable, to have become insensible and motionless. But before this 
figure, twice transformed into stone, and yet so inimitably animated — 
before this line of demarcation of all human suffering, the most callous 
beholder is dissolved in tears." 

The associates of Scopas, in the work of adorning the tomb of 
Mausolus, were celebrated not only as architects, but as sculptors. 
Timotheus was the framerof an admirable statue of Artemis, preserved 
in the temple of Apollo, on Mount Palatine, the head of which had, 
however, in the time of Pliny, been restored by Aulanius Evander. 
Bryaxis was renowned chiefly for his statues of iEsculapius and 
Seleucus. The tender had now taken the place of that sublimity to 
which Phidias had so nobly aspired ; and some relaxation may soon 
be observed in the severity of sculpture. When Grecian freedom ex- 
pired under Philip and Alexander, the art lost something of the high 
idealism it had formerly developed, though it was advanced in all the 
delicacies of form by Praxitiles and Lysippus. These great artists 
must, however, be considered hereafter. 

The Elgin Happily for us, we are not left to gather all our ideas of the freeness, 
marbles. grace, and the majesty of sculpture in the vestiges of Greece from 

the statements of historians. If the Zeus Olympius, and the noble 
statue of Athene, in the Parthenon, are totally lost, we have, in our 
own country, ample vestiges, from which we may form conceptions, 
not altogether inadequate of the grandest of these astonishing works. 
We allude to the sculptured marbles brought by Lord Elgin from 
Athens, which were purchased by Parliament, and are now open for 
public inspection in the British Museum. The chief of these, consist- 
ing of a statue of Heracles, or Theseus ; of an Ilissus, or river god ; 
of horses' heads ; of fourteen metopes, in alto-relievo ; and of the 
friezes representing the grand procession for celebrating the Pana- 
thensean festival, were taken from the ruins of the temple of Par- 
thenon, with a number of less perfect fragments. These pieces have 
been almost universally regarded by our greatest artists and men of 
taste to be of the very highest order of art. Nollekens stated 
in his evidence before the committee of the House of Commons, 
appointed to consider the expediency of purchasing the collection, that 
the marbles were " the finest things that ever came to this country ;" 
that the bass-reliefs were " among the first class" of that species of 
sculpture ; and that the Theseus was as fine a sculpture as the 
Belvidere Apollo. Flaxman regarded the Theseus as somewhat 
inferior to the Apollo, because the latter statue partook more of ideal 
beauty ; but expressed the most enthusiastic admiration of every part 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 489 

of the collection. Westmacott considered the Theseus and the river The Elgin 
god as "infinitely superior to the Apollo Belvidere," and observed, mar 
that " the back of the Theseus was the finest thing in the world, and 
that the anatomical skill displayed in the front of the Ilissus was 
not surpassed by any work of art." Chan trey, Rossi, Sir Thomas 
Lawrence, Day, Wilkins, West, and the Earl of Aberdeen, all spoke 
of them as among the noblest relics of ancient genius, though differing 
in some minuter points respecting them. It was also the opinion of 
these gentlemen, that the works are of the age of Phidias ; though 
how far that great artist himself assisted personally in their execution 
can only be matter of reasoning and conjecture. Payne Knight, how- 
ever, expressed, in some respects, a different opinion, both as to their 
antiquity and their value ; he placed " the finest of them in the second 
rank," and thought that most of them were added by the Emperor 
Adrian, but considered the best of the metopes as of the first class of 
high relief, and the frieze of the procession as of the best order of low 
relief in existence. With respect to the different estimate of the ab- 
stract merit of these works, as the matter entirely depends on feeling 
and taste, we can only state the opinions of those who may certainly be 
presumed competent judges. But the question of antiquity being a 
matter of fact, depending, in some measure, on external evidence, may 
be fairly made the subject of discussion. Now the only reason offered 
by Payne Knight in support of the hypothesis, that part of the works 
are of the age of Adrian, is, that " Spon and Wheeler thought one of 
the heads to be of that emperor, and later travellers having found no 
symbols of any deity upon it, also for the draped trunks which seem to 
be of that complicated and stringy kind of work which was then in 
fashion." But the observations of Spon and Wheeler are admitted to 
be loose, if not inaccurate ; and the conclusions they drew from them 
are, in some instances, undoubtedly erroneous. Thus these travellers, 
misled by a false view of the description given of the Parthenon by 
Pausanias, mistook the subjects of the eastern, for those of the western 
pediment, and vice versa; and strove, with perverse ingenuity, to dis- 
cover the birth of Athene in the contest for Attica, as has been indis- 
putably shown by the Chevalier Visconti. Little reliance is then to be 
placed on their opinion, had they really advanced it. In the absence of 
all proof from history, that the works are of later date than the temple, 
their style may surely be received as evidence of their ancient origin. 
They are in the purest and simplest manner of Grecian sculptures ; 
they have nothing of the theatrical art about them which distinguishes 
the statues of later times ; they are grander, indeed, than common 
nature, but their innate divinity reposes on its own powers, and does 
not appear to put itself forth for the admiration or reverence of spec- 
tators. Canova passed on them the warmest eulogies, and declared that 
he should have felt "perfectly satisfied had he come to London only 
to view them." Surely, then, it is no unreasonable supposition that 
they are part of the original decorations of the temple where they were 



490 



EARLY SCULPTORS OF GREECE. 



The Elgin found, over the whole of which Phidias presided, and that they are 

mar from his designs, if not touched by his hand ! 

All the eulogiums, however, which have been passed on these 
admirable works, and even the belief that the greatest benefit to the 
arts would arise from their public exhibition in our metropolis, would 
not reconcile us to their removal from Athens, if the charges brought 
against Lord Elgin for his conduct in procuring them were well 
founded. Nothing could justify the measure of attempting to take 
them from their old positions, but the certainty that they could not 
remain there without the utmost hazard of sustaining irremediable 
injuries. They can never be regarded elsewhere with that feeling 
with which they were surveyed at Athens. They cannot have the 
same atmosphere of sentiment about them. Nor, while a spark of 
old enthusiasm continued alive in the breasts of the Athenians for 
these relics of the glory of their fathers, could they in common justice 
be deprived of the objects of their reverence, even though, as works 
of art, they could neither appreciate nor enjoy them. But it appears 
that the most valuable sculptures in Lord Elgin's collection were not 
. removed from places in which they were open to inspection, but were 
found, after much toil, amidst neglected ruins. For Spon and Wheeler 
represent the eastern pediment of the temple as having fallen down, 
and the figures which were visible as so far distant from any place 
where they could be distinctly seen, that no drawings were made of 
them. But the most important fact stated by Lord Elgin is, that 
when he was preparing to make an excavation in a spot where some 
of the principal statues had probably fallen, the Turks informed him 
that they had pounded all the marbles he expected to find there for 
mortar. Indeed, it appears that the most wanton aggressions on the 
marble were constantly permitted, or winked at, all travellers being 
ready to give some recompence for permission to remove relics, in 
which they frequently committed more injury than they derived 
advantage. A comparison of the most perfect parts of Lord Elgin's 
collections, with the accounts and drawings of travellers in various 
times, will show how rapidly the sculptures have been lessened and 
defaced. Between the time of Stuart's visit to Athens, and the 
arrival of Lord Elgin, an old temple on the Ilissus had disappeared ; 
a temple in the neighbourhood of Elis and Olympia had been taken 
away ; and thirteen columns at Corinth had been reduced to five, as 
pieces were constantly broken off by travellers. According to the 
evidence of Wilkins, of ninety-two metopes which adorned the 
temple, two-and-thirty must have been removed, and probably de- 
stroyed, before the operations of Lord Elgin. This gentleman also 
observed, that " at the time that Lord Elgin was at Athens, there 
existed among the Turks a great desire to deface all the sculpture 
within their reach;" but adds, that now a disposition is shown to 
preserve them, in consequence, no doubt, of the profit arising from 
the sale of the permission to remove them. The testimony of the 



EARLY SCULFTORS OF GREECE. 



491 



Earl of Aberdeen is explicit with respect to the danger of great part The Elgin 
of the marbles had they remained at Athens. It does not appear mar es * 
that any unpleasant sensation was created by their removal, but rather 
the reverse, in the minds of the natives. Some few of the articles, 
and these the least important, might, perhaps, from their situation 
and from their position, have been left with safety ; and it is to be 
regretted that these have been taken from their places. On the whole, 
however, we think it is satisfactorily established, that the far greater 
part of the glorious works which we now possess would have perished 
by the hands of the ignorant, had they not been preserved by our 
ambassador; who, as far as pecuniary considerations are involved, 
paid highlyrfor them, and who stands, we think, acquitted by the 
necessity of the case, on the more sentimental grounds of accusation 
alleged against him. We have, then, we believe, obtained them 
honestly, and we cannot too highly estimate the value of their pos- 
session. Not only must they form an admirable school for our 
artists, but diffuse among the people at large that sense of high and 
pure beauty, which will add to their noblest pleasures, and render 
even their moral feelings more gentle and more exalted. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 

Panaenus - 
polygnotus 
Apollodorus 
Zeuxis 
Parrhasius 

TlMANTHES 

Eupompus - 
Pamphilus 

Jnvention of Pliny, in his inquiries into ancient painting, attributes its invention 
painting. to a period long after that in which sculpture was commonly practised 
both among the Egyptians and the Greeks ; for he asserts that it was 
unknown until after the destruction of Troy, and that even lineary 
portraying, or the drawing of the mere outline of a figure, was first 
practised by Ardices of Corinth, and Thelephanes of Sicyon. But 
this opinion is refuted by the testimonies of other writers, who speak 
of the ancient practice of the art in Egypt, and by the chests of 
mummies which are still in existence. Plato speaks of painting as 
having been practised by the Egyptians for ten thousand years ; 
which assertion, though manifestly extravagant, is sufficient to prove 
that the art had been known by them for a long period. Probably it 
was neglected about the sera of the Trojan war, and afterwards 



FLOURISHED ABOUT B. C. 450 

- B. C 420 

- B. C. 410 




B. c. 400 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



493 



revived in Greece by those who are represented as its inventors. It 
would be strange if sculpture had, by many ages, preceded the mere 
pencilling of outlines on a flat surface, in which all testimonies agree 
that painting originally consisted. In the time of Homer, it is evident 
that the idea, at least, of representing persons, groups, and events in 
colours, prevailed ; because we find in his works repeated allusions to 
the working in tapestry the pictures of grand and varied transactions. 
It is probable, therefore, that lineary painting must have been known 
in preceding ages. The first painters, indeed, in Greece were mere 
drawers, and appear not to have practised colouring. This cir- 
cumstance must be attributed to that simplicity of taste which is so 
manifest in the ancient sculpture, and that strong bias which existed 
in the national feeling to singleness of delineation arising from the 
tendencies of religion. We have already seen how they were led to 
cast everything into a set and definite form, and to substitute in their 
poetry beautiful human figures for the objects of inanimate nature. 
Hence their painting was not only very simple in its beginning, but 
even in its perfection partook of the qualities of sculpture. Most of 
their pictures were either single portraits of individuals, or historical 
groups consisting of a few simple figures, and rarely exhibited any 
attempts at perspective. Hence the delicacy of shading, which would 
be found needful for the accurate delineation of a single figure, was 
carried to a high degree of perfection, while other parts of the art 
were in their rudest beginnings. 

According to the testimony of Pliny, the first painters of Greece Early 
used no other instrument than a coal to mark out their outlines. The jj^^f 8 of 
first who made use of colour was Cleophantus of Corinth, who had no 
other colour than red, which he produced by grinding some kind of 
brick or earth to powder. Eumarus, a painter of Athens, first dis- 
tinguished the sexes in his pictures, and gave to male and female 
their proper lineaments. Cimon the Cleonean, who followed Eu- 
marus, first invented the mode of representing faces as looking on one 
side, and the folds of vestments and inequalities of surfaces. He 
seems to have excelled in the knowledge of anatomy, representing, 
with accuracy never before attempted, the knitting of the joints and 
the branching of the veins in his figures. The time when these 
artists flourished cannot be ascertained with precision. There are 
manifest contradictions in the account given by Pliny. While, in one 
place, he asserts painting to have been totally unknown at the time of 
the siege of Troy, in another he asserts it to have arrived at per- 
fection in the time of Romulus, because, about that period, Candaules, 
king of Lydia, bought of a painter, called Bularchus, a picture for as 
much gold as it weighed, and hence infers, that " evident and apparent 
it is that the origin and beginning of the art was of much higher 
antiquity, and those painters who used but one colour lived a long 
time before, although it is not recorded in what age they flourished." 
Certain it is that no painter obtained any great renown in Greece 



494 



EAELY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



before the age of Phidias. Soon after this, however, it advanced 
with great rapidity, and several most distinguished artists appeared 
contending for the highest palm of excellence. 

Panaenus. Phidias, as we have seen in his life, was himself originally a 
B. c. 450. painter. After he had left this art, for the exercise of that in which 
he was more renowned, his brother, Panaenus, continued to excel in 
picture. One of his most celebrated works represented the battle of 
Marathon, and contained the figures of Miltiades, Callimachus, and 
Cynegyrus, on the Grecian side, and of Datis and Artaphernes on that 
of the Persians. He was employed in decorating the wall which 
surrounded the statue of Zeus Olympius at Elis, and an account of 
the subjects of the painting which he executed on that occasion is 
preserved in the ancient descriptions of the statue. These were, Atlas 
sustaining the heavens and the earth, with Heracles relieving him of 
his burthen; figures of Theseus and Pirithous; emblematic figures, 
representing Greece and Salamis ; Ajax suffering under the reproach 
of Cassandra ; the strife of Heracles with the Nemsean lion ; Hyppo- 
damia, daughter of (Enomaus, with her mother ; Prometheus chained, 
with Heracles advancing to his assistance ; Prometheus delivered by 
' Heracles ; Achilles supporting Penthesilea dying ; and the two Hes- 
perides bearing golden apples. In the time of this artist, prizes were 
given at Corinth and Delphi for excellence in painting ; for one of 
which he contended with a painter named Timagoras ; but it does not 
appear which of them obtained the victory. 

Poiygnotus. But Polygnotus, who flourished about 420 years before the 
b. c. 420. Christian sera, just in the dawn of the age of Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and 
Timanthes, seems to have contributed more largely to the advance- 
ment of his art than all preceding painters. Before his time, the 
countenance was represented as destitute of animation and fire, and a 
kind of leaden dulness pervaded its features. His triumph it was to 
kindle up expression in the face, and to throw feeling and intellect 
into the whole frame. He was the Prometheus of painting. He also 
first painted the mouth open, so that the teeth were displayed, and 
occasion given to use that part of the face in the expression of varying 
emotions. He first clothed his figures in light, airy, and transparent 
draperies, which he elegantly threw about the light forms of his 
women. He was, in short, the author both of delicacy and expres- 
sion in the paintings of Greece ; but his style is said to have been 
hard, and his colouring not equal to his design. 

This excellent artist was the son of Aglaophon, himself a painter, 
and born in Thasos, an island of the iEgean sea. He followed, for 
some time, the art of sculpture, but soon devoted himself exclusively 
to that for which his genius was better adapted. His great works con- 
sisted of those with which he decorated the UotdX-r} (Pcecile), a grand 
gallery and place of exercise at Athens, so denominated from the great 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



495 



variety of its embellishments. For this place he executed a series of Poiygnotus. 
paintings, representing the principal events of the Trojan war. For 
his labours on these works, he refused to receive any remuneration 
from the public, while Mycon, a contemporary artist, who was em- 
ployed in adorning another part of the same building, was liberally 
paid for the exertions of his genius. Poiygnotus, however, was not 
without his reward. The sacred council of the Amphictyons, the 
representatives of all the states of Greece, offered him solemn expres- 
sions of gratitude on behalf of the whole commonwealth, and decreed 
that wherever he should travel he should be entertained at the public 
expense. One of his pictures, on a tablet, was preserved at Rome, in 
the gallery of Pompey, representing a man on a scaling-ladder, with a 
target in his hand, so contrived that it was impossible to tell whether 
he was going upwards or descending. Pliny informs us, that besides 
the Mycon, who assisted in painting the UoidXr], there was another 
painter of the same name, whose daughter, Timanthe, excelled in the 
art professed by her father. 

Apollodortjs further prepared the way for the best efforts of Apoiiodorus 
painting in Greece. He was the first who carried the disposition of B.C. 410. 
light and shade, and chiaro-oscuro, to any degree of perfection. His 
genius was calculated to astonish and rivet the attention. Pliny in- 
forms us, that no painter before him could succeed in holding the 
spectators of his works in the long contemplation of their excellence : 
" Neque ante eum tabula ullius ostenditur quae teneat oculos." One 
of his most celebrated pictures exhibited a priest at his devotions, 
" breathless with adoration ;" and another, Ajax struck with fire from 
heaven. The latter was preserved at Pergamos. It may be observed, 
that the subject is more bold than any recorded to have been previously 
chosen by a painter. 

Zeuxis, who, with Timanthes and Parrhasius, carried ancient Zeuxis. 
painting nearly to perfection, was born at Heraclea ; but whether at B. c. 400. 
the city of that name in Macedon, or that near Crotona, in Italy, does 
not certainly appear. He studied either under Demophilus or Neseas, 
artists respecting whom nothing is known, but that one of them was 
his master. Soon, however, he far outstripped his instructor, as 
Apoiiodorus intimated in verses expressive of his indignation that 
Zeuxis should have moulded to his own use all previous inventions, 
and stolen the graces of the best masters ; thus paying a fine involun- 
tary compliment to his highly-gifted rival. Apoiiodorus, having first 
practised chiaro-oscuro, could not endure that his glory should be 
eclipsed by a younger artist, who availed himself of his improvements 
to rise to a higher degree of excellence. Zeuxis seems to have rapidly 
arisen to the highest distinction in Greece, and acquired, by the exer- 
cise of his art, not only renown, but riches. Of the latter advantage 
he was more vain than became a man of exalted genius. He appeared 



496 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



Zeuxis at the Olympic games attired in a mantle, on which his name was 
embroidered in letters of gold, a piece of most absurd display in one 
whose name was deeply impressed on the hearts and imaginations of 
those by whom he was surrounded. He does not, however, seem to 
be chargeable with avarice, or, at least, this passion, if it existed, was 
subservient to his pride ; for when he had attained the height of his 
fame, he refused any longer to receive money for his pictures, but 
made presents of them, avowing that he regarded them as above all 
pecuniary value. In the earlier part of his career he was accustomed, 
however, to exhibit his productions for money, especially his most 
celebrated painting of Helen, whence the figure was denominated 
" Helen the courtesan."' The truth seems to have been, that the 
ruling passion of Zeuxis was the love of pomp, an ever-restless vanity, 
a constant desire and craving after every kind of distinction. So far 
as money assisted in procuring this, he stooped to obtain it, and 
refused it when he could most successfully assume dignity by refusing 
farther recompence. 

Little is known respecting the events of the life of this celebrated 
painter. He was not only successful in securing wealth and the 
applause of the multitude, but was honoured with the friendship of 
Archelaus, king of Macedon. For the palace of this monarch he 
executed numerous pictures. iElian informs us, that Socrates, refer- 
ring to tins circumstance, observed, that " Archelaus had expended 
large sums of money on his house, but none on himself ; whence it 
was that numbers came from all parts of the world to see the palace, 
but none its owner, unless such as were allured by his presents, who 
were not amongst the most virtuous of men." Cicero informs us, 
that the inhabitants of Crotona prevailed on Zeuxis to visit their city 
and to paint there a number of pictures, which were intended to 
adorn the temple of Here, for which he was to receive a large and 
stipulated sum. On his arrival, he informed them that he intended 
only to paint the picture of Helen, with which they were satisfied, 
because he was regarded as peculiarly excellent in the delineation of 
women. He, accordingly, desired to see the most beautiful maidens 
in the city, and having selected five whom he preferred, copied all 
that was most beautiful and perfect in the form of each, and thus 
completed his Helen. Pliny, in his relation of the same circumstance, 
omits to give the particular subject of the painting, or the terms of 
the original contract, and states that the whole occurred, not among 
the people of Crotona, but those of Agrigentum, for whom, he says, 
the piece was executed, to fulfil a vow made by them to the goddess. 
This great artist, on several occasions, painted pictures for cities and 
states. He gave to the Agrigentines his Alcmena, representing Hera- 
cles strangling the serpents in his cradle in the sight of his parents, 
who were looking on affrighted, and a figure of Pan to his patron 
Archelaus of Macedon. It seems probable that he painted a picture 
of Helen besides that for the people of Crotona, which was in ex- 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



497 



istence at Rome in the lifetime of Pliny. Under this he inscribed the Zeux 
beautiful verses of Homer, representing the old counsellors of Priam 
as softened at the appearance of her beauty, and acknowledging that 
she was an object for which both Trojans and Greeks might reasonably 
endure all the calamities of protracted war. 

Oi u; ovv uo~ov 'EXzv/iv zti Tugyov loutruv, 
Hxa. Vgo; &XXriXov; ZTZa rfTZoozvr o.yoQiuov 
Ou vt/JtiffTiSt Tqcou.; xa.) ivxvJtfAtbe/,; Anxious, 
To7'/i% au<pi yvvocizt rfoXbv -^oovov oLXyza 'Jraayjitv 
Atveo; oJoivd-TYitrt 6i7is h; uTa. zotzzv. 1 

Iliad, iii. 154. 

The most celebrated of the pictures of Zeuxis, besides the Helens 
and the Alcmena, were — a Penelope, in which Pliny assures us, that 
not only form, but character, was vividly expressed ; a representation 
of Zeus seated on his throne, with all the gods around doing him 
homage ; a Marsyas bound to a tree, which was preserved at Rome ; 
and a wrestler, beneath which he inscribed a verse to the effect that it 
was easier to envy than to imitate its excellence. Lucian has left us 
an admirable description of another of his pieces, representing the 
Centaurs, in which he particularly applauds the delicacy of the 
drawing, the harmony of the colouring, the softness of the blending 
shades, and the excellence of the proportions. He left many draughts 
in a single colour on white. Pliny censures him for the too great size 
of the heads and joints in comparison with the other parts of his 
figures. Aristotle complains that he was a painter of forms rather 
than of manners, which seems contrary to the eulogium passed by 
Pliny on the representation of Penelope. 

The story respecting the contest between Zeuxis and Parrhasius 
has been frequently related. It is said that the former painted a 
cluster of grapes with such perfect skill, that birds came and pecked 
them as they were exhibited on the table. Elated with so une- 
quivocal a testimony of his excellence, he called to his rival to draw 
back the curtain which he supposed concealed his work, anticipating 
a certain triumph. Now, however, he found himself entrapped ; for 
that which he considered as a curtain was only a painting of one by 
Parrhasius; upon which he ingenuously confessed himself defeated, 
since he had only deceived birds, but his antagonist had beguiled the 
senses of an experienced artist. Another story is related, of a similar 
kind, in which he overcame himself, or rather one part of his work 
was shown to have excelled at the expense of the other. He painted 
a boy with a basket of grapes, to which the birds resorted ; on which 

1 These, when the Spartan queen approached the tower, 
In secret owned resistless beauty's power. 
They cried, " No wonder such celestial charms 
For nine long years have set the world in arms ; 
What winning graces ! what majestic mien ! 
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen ! " 

Pope* 

fH. G.] 2 K 



498 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



Xeuxis. he acknowledged that the boy could not be well painted, since, had 
the similitude been in both cases equal, the birds would have been 
deterred from approaching. From these stories, if they can be 
credited, it would appear that Zeuxis excelled more in painting fruit 
than in depicting the human form. If this were the case, it is strange 
that all his greater efforts, of which any accounts have reached us, 
were portraits, or groups of men or deities. The readiness Zeuxis 
has, in these instances, been represented as manifesting to acknow- 
ledge his weakness, is scarcely consistent with the usual tenor of his 
spirit. At all events, the victory of Parrhasius proved very little 
respecting the relative merit of the two artists. The man who could 
represent a curtain to perfection would not necessarily be the greatest 
painter in Greece. Even were exactness of imitation the sole excel- 
lence in the picture, regard must be had to the nature of the objects 
imitated, in reference to the skill of the artists by whom they were 
chosen. 

Zeuxis is said to have taken a long time to finish his chief pro- 
ductions ; observing, when reproached for his slowness, as Euripides 
had done before him, that he was painting for eternity. Quinctilian 
says of him, " Hasc vero circumscripsit omnia, ut eum legum latorem 
vocent, quia deoram et heroum effigies, quales ab eo sunt traditse, 
caeteri, tamquam ita necesse sit sequuntur." 1 Many testimonies, indeed, 
are scattered through the works of the best writers of antiquity to his 
transcendent genius. 

Festus, on the sole authority of Verrius Flaccus, relates that Zeuxis 
died with laughter at the picture of an old woman which he had 
himself painted. So extraordinary a circumstance would surely have 
been alluded to by some other writer, had it been true, than him on 
whose authority it rests. There seems, therefore, good reason to 
believe it fictitious. 

Parrhasius. Parrhasius, the rival of Zeuxis, was born at Ephesus, and 
acquired a knowledge of the art of painting from his father Evenor, 
who practised it. He is said, by Pliny, to have been the first who 
observed the rules of accurate symmetry in portraying the human 
figure, which it seems to have been the practice even of his most 
celebrated contemporary to disregard. His peculiar excellencies con- 
sisted in his designs and his outlines, in the first sketching and exterior 
lines of his pictures, which Pliny regards as the most difficult part of 
the art. He excelled also in the expression of character, respecting 
which Xenophon has preserved a dialogue between him and Socrates, 
which the latter turns to moral uses. He also is said first to have 
delicately painted the hair, and to have disposed it in tresses, so as to 
add to the beauty, or assist in the general expression of his figures. 

1 " He, indeed, set limits to all these, so much so, as to be called the 1 standard 
of correct taste ;' since the other forms of gods and men, followed, as of necessity, 
those which were bequeathed to art by him." 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



499 



He painted, also, most inimitably, the lips and mouth, touching them Parrhasius 
with peculiar elegance, and finishing them with singular grace. But, 
in general, he was defective in the filling up, in the shading, and the 
colouring of the masterly outlines which he drew. His sketches and 
outlines, many of which he left without filling up, both on tablets and 
parchment, became, in after-times, the studies of youthful painters. 

His greatest work was an allegorical painting of the Genius of the 
Athenians, in which he endeavoured to embody in a single piece all 
the wayward and contradictory passions and feelings, the stupendous 
greatness and the singular weaknesses, the admirable tastes and con- 
temptible jealousies, of that most strange, yet most interesting people. 
Of this great performance, Pliny says, " Pinxit et Dsemona Athenien- 
sium ; argumento quoque ingenioso volebat namque varium, iracundium, 
injustum, inconstantem ; eundem vero exorabilem, clementem, miseri- 
cordem, excelsum, gloriosum, humilem, ferocem, fugacemque et 
omnia pariter ostendere." 1 It seems impossible that all these varied 
characteristics could have been expressed by a single figure ; probably 
a variety of groups were depicted in one large piece, to attain the 
object of the painter. 

Besides this grand piece, Parrhasius painted two celebrated groups 
on different tablets ; the one containing the figures of iEneas, Castor 
and Pollux ; the other, Telephus, Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus. 
He excelled in delineations of childhood and tender youth, as, his 
nurse with an infant in her arms ; a priest, attended by a child with a 
censor ; and two boys, with a peculiar expression of innocence, uncon- 
sciousness, and freedom from care in their countenances, abundantly 
proved. A naval captain, armed with a corslet; Dionysus, with 
Virtue standing over him ; and two excellent figures, one of a man in 
armour, running, and appearing to labour beneath its weight ; and the 
other, of a person taking off armour, as fatigued with past exertions, 
were among the most famous of his productions. His picture of 
Theseus procured for him the freedom of the city of Athens, and was 
afterwards placed in the Capitol at Rome. Another of his pieces, 
Archigallus, was in the possession of the Emperor Tiberius, who kept 
it in his bedchamber, and regarded it as worth sixty thousand sesterces. 
A grand heroic picture by his hand, representing Meleager, Heracles, 
and Perseus, was preserved at Rhodes, where it was regarded not 
only with the admiration due to its excellence, but with superstitious 
veneration, from a story that the tablet on which it was painted had 
been three times struck with lightning, but that the colours did not 
receive the least injury. This tale Pliny calls a miracle, and says it 
adds greatly to the credit of the picture. 

Parrhasius, like his rival, is accused of great ostentation and vanity. 

1 " He embodied, in a witty painting of his own design, the genius of the Athenians, 
characterised for its various exhibitions of revenge, injustice, and inconstancy ; 
faithfully representing all that was forgiving, generous, compassionate, peaceable, 
noble, vainglorious, humble, courageous, and cowardly." 

2 k 2 



500 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



Parrhasius. He spoke of himself as the prince of painters, and as having brought 
his art to perfection. He added new epithets to his name to express 
his dignity. He even announced himself to be a lineal descendant 
from Apollo, and affirmed that his picture of Heracles was an actual 
portrait of that hero, who used to appear to him in visions, in order 
to give him the opportunity of taking an exact resemblance of his 
person. In public he appeared dressed in rich and costly garments of 
purple embroidered with gold. Worse things than these pompous 
follies are, however, objected to him. Pliny tells us that he was 
accustomed to relax his mind from his nobler pursuits by framing 
small pictures of a loose and immoral character. Seneca, the rheto- 
rician, brings an atrocious charge against him. He affirms that 
Parrhasius, being desirous of representing the tortures of Prometheus, 
caused an Olynthian captive to be put to a lingering death by torture, 
while he drew from his agonies the vivid representation of his hero's 
sufferings. But we are happy to disbelieve this story, as Olynthus 
was not taken until Parrhasius, if living, must have been very far 
advanced in years. Our readers will remember a similar tale in the 
annals of Italian art. 

Parrhasius, who conquered Zeuxis, was himself overcome by 
Timanthes ; and in a fairer trial of merit than that in which he ob- 
tained the victory. On this occasion, the rival artists painted pieces 
on the same subject — the indignation of Ajax on the judication of the 
arms of Achilles to Odysseus, and that of Timanthes was thought 
exceedingly superior. Parrhasius consoled himself by affecting to 
lament the fate of Ajax, a second time overcome by his inferior. 

Timanthes. Timanthes has not been so much brought forward in the annals of 
art as Zeuxis and Parrhasius ; but, as far as we have means given us 
of judging, he was, at least, inferior to neither in genius. He seems 
to have thrown a large share of intellect and thought into his pro- 
ductions. He appears to have been unequalled both in ingenuity and 
feeling, of which we have some curious examples. One of these was 
displayed in the picture on the noble subject of the sacrifice of 
Iphigenia, in which he represented the tender and beautiful virgin 
standing before the altar awaiting her doom, and surrounded by her 
afflicted relatives. All these last he depicted as moved by various 
degrees of sorrow, and grief seemed to have reached its utmost 
expression in the face of Menelaus ; but that of Agamemnon was left 
— and the painter, heightening the interest by confessing the inade- 
quacy of his art, covered the head of the father with his mantle, 
leaving his agony to the imagination, and regarding it as too sacred for 
the gaze of spectators. Of this piece, Quinctilian says, " Cum in 
Iphigenise immolatione pinxisset tristem Calchantem, tristiorem Ulys- 
sem, addidisset Menelao quern summam poterat ars efficere moerorem ; 
consumptis affectibus, non reperiens quo digne modo patris vultum 
jposset exprimere, velavit ejus caput, et suo cuique animo daedit sesti- 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



501 



mandum." 1 On another occasion, having painted a sleeping Cyclop in Timanthes. 
an exceedingly small compass, yet wishing to convey the idea of 
his gigantic size, he introduced a group of satyrs, with poles, taking 
the measure of his thumb. A deep meaning was to be discovered in 
every work of his pencil ; yet the tendency to expression and signifi- 
cant delineation did not detract from the beauty of the forms which he 
created ; for his figure of a prince was so perfect in its proportions, 
and so majestic in its air, that it appears to have reached the utmost 
height of the ideal. This picture was preserved in the temple of 
Peace at Rome. 

Of Eupompus, another painter of this time, who acquired consi- Eupompus. 
derable reputation, we know even less than of Timanthes. Before he 
acquired his renown, we are informed that there were only two great 
styles of painting, or rather distinctive names bestowed on the 
painting of different regions — the Helladian and Asiatic. But Eu- 
pompus, being a native of Sicyon, so exalted the fame of his country 
for the art, that the Helladian was divided, and the Sicyonian and 
the Attic became the terms for the two schools of artists in Europe, 
while that of the cities of Asia was denominated by the general term 
of Ionian. One of the most celebrated works of this painter was the 
naked figure of a conqueror in the public games, holding in his hand 
the branch of a date-tree. Eupompus was the master of Pamphilus, 
who afterwards had the honour of instructing Apelles. 

Pamphilus appears to have given the deepest attention to the Pamphilus. 
principles of his art. He excelled all his contemporaries in the know- B. C. 400. 
ledge of general literature, and was well acquainted with mathematical 
lore, without which he thought that no one could become a perfect 
painter. He was, therefore, peculiarly qualified to instruct others in 
the art of painting, and valued his lessons highly, since he received no 
pupil for a less sum than ten talents of silver, for which he gave 
instruction during ten years. On these terms, Melanthus and Apelles 
became his disciples. He was a native of Amphipolis, a city upon 
the borders of Macedonia and Thrace, but established his school at 
Sicyon. There he first procured for painting a rank among the 
liberal sciences, and caused a law to be passed, whereby all free 
citizens were to be taught its principles in their youth — a measure 
which was afterwards adopted throughout Greece. No slave was 
permitted to practise the art, nor even to become an engraver; a 
restriction which, while it shows the high esteem in which painting 
was held, evinces the haughty and exclusive spirit with which the 
republicans of old strove to debase human nature and human genius, 

1 " When, in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, he had represented the grief of Calchas, 
and the deeper grief of Ulysses, and had invested Menelaus with the most poignant 
sorrow which art could effect, his ingenuity being exhausted, and failing to discover 
in what becoming manner he should represent the countenance of the father, he 
covered his head with a veil, and left to the imagination of each spectator the pro- 
found grief of the parent." 



502 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



Pamphiius. [ n order to render themselves the sole depositaries of virtue and of 
wisdom. The most celebrated of the pictures of Pamphiius were a 
picture of a family, the battle before Phlius, and the victory of the 
Athenians, and Odysseus on the seas in a small vessel. He was the 
last of that cluster of painters who preceded the more decisive and 
splendid success of Protogenes and Apelles. 

Comparison We have unfortunately but slender materials which can lead us to 
and n modem f° rm a correct judgment of the degree of excellence which the Grecian 
painting. painters attained. Their pictures, although painted on solid and 
durable substances, as larch, box-wood, or fir, the ceilings and walls 
of buildings, and sometimes even on marble, have perished. This 
cannot excite wonder, when we remember that the use of oil in 
painting was probably unknown to the ancients, and that their var- 
nishes, before distillation was invented, were necessarily imperfect, 
and could not long prevent decay. If the grandest works of Phidias, 
although statues of colossal size, are entirely lost, it could scarcely be 
expected that the pictures of Zeuxis would survive. We can enter- 
tain, however, very little doubt that there were some excellencies in 
which the Grecian painters approached perfection. For if we consider 
the grandeur and the beauty of the works of statuary which, in their 
time, were placed in every forum and temple, it is impossible to 
believe that painting could have been held almost in equal esteem 
with sculpture, unless some of the noblest capabilities of the art had 
been developed by its followers. The Apollo Belvidere, the Venus 
de Medicis, and the Laocoon, have for ages been regarded as the 
highest possible models of excellence, which modern artists have been 
contented to admire, without hoping to rival. And even of these the 
two former are probably mere copies, and the latter is certainly the 
work of an age when the purest severities of earlier times were no 
longer attained by the sculptor. The Elgin marbles, though the 
works of the best age of Grecian art, were only the inferior ornaments 
of that temple, in which the Athene of Phidias was revered ; and, 
astonishing as they are in majesty and grandeur, were produced by the 
hands of artists not, in their own days, comparable with the mighty 
framer of the principal statue. After the contemplation, therefore, of 
all these relics of ancient genius which time and the chances of the 
world have spared, we have doubtless a very inadequate idea of that 
more than earthly sublimity which the master-pieces of Greek sculp- 
ture displayed, of the high divinity with which they were " instinct," 
or of the sweet graces with which every minuter part was touched, 
softened, and perfected. Surely, then, the art which shared the 
admiration of the Athenians with sculpture, must have put forth no 
common specimens. 

Still there is great reason to believe, that if, in some respects, the 
ancient painters attained the highest excellence, there were others in 
which they were far inferior to the modems. According to Pliny, 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



503 



Apelles himself, who flourished, after the artists alluded to in this Comparison 
article had acquired great renown for their profession, used no more an^modem 
than four colours. Hence we may conclude, that the chief excellence painting, 
of the Greeks lay in the design, and in the strictly grand style of their 
delineations. It will be observed, that all the pictures enumerated 
by Pliny consist of a single figure, or of groups of figures representing 
the human form, though that form is almost always of the grandest or 
sweetest cast, and is made to shadow forth the valour of heroes or the 
divinity of gods, or the loveliness of woman and the cherubic beauty 
of childhood ; landscape was rarely, if ever painted ; and it may be 
doubted if the first artists understood, with any degree of accuracy, 
the first principles of perspective. Painting, indeed, was allied as 
near as possible to sculpture ; its object and its excellencies were the 
same. This arose, in some degree, from the singular beauty of the 
forms which artists had constant opportunities of studying, but more 
from the general taste of the Greeks, which led them, on all occasions, 
to personify objects of nature, to embody the thoughts of mind, to 
catch the most airy and fleeting ideas of beauty and grace, and to 
shape out from them distinct and vivid images. They had no per- 
spective of mind. Their poetry was that of satisfaction, not of desire ; 
and, for the same reason, their painting gave no ideas of remoteness. 
They revelled in the present ; or, if they looked backward, they saw 
only grander and more stately forms in the demi-gods and regal 
champions of the heroic ages. 

The superstitions of Greece were, for the most part, gay and 
joyous ; the images of its gods were models of earthly beauty ; its 
religion was a continued festival. As there was little of solemnity in 
the most elevated thoughts of its people, there was little of deep- 
shadowing, or of awe-breathing gloom in its paintings. A different 
spirit prevailed in those ages in which the" Italian masters were formed 
to excellence. Life had ceased to be a mere course of unthinking 
gladness ; a soberer hue was shed over the colouring of existence. 
Religion, in its purity, while its light so far penetrated beyond the 
grave as to reveal the fact of another life, clearly displayed nothing but 
the mighty outlines of eternal being, leaving its solemnities covered 
with a sacred gloom. A new and boundless expanse was opened for 
imagination to soar in, but the mighty objects lifted only their gigantic 
forms through clouds and mists, in the dimness of which their 
grandeur was felt rather than seen. Depths also were opened in the 
human soul, which man himself could not fathom, nor look into 
without trembling. The feelings which arose from these new worlds 
of mystery affected all kinds of imaginative productions. Even the 
human form was represented with a more pensive beauty : its hopes 
seemed to come from afar ; its looks were of angels ; its smiles were 
brought up from joys in the depths of the soul. The mind became 
accustomed to grasp a larger space, and the painter strove to represent 
vastness and distance. At the same time the Muses, the Nymphs, 



504 



EARLY PAINTERS OF GREECE. 



Comparison th e River-gods, the Cupids — all the personifications of qualities, 
an'l'modern powers, and the works of the material creation, faded — and Nature in 
painting. j ier 0W11 f ree lovehness burst freshly in upon him. The romantic 
manners, too, and the gloomy superstitions of the middle ages, gave 
new subjects for the pencil, which were happily adapted to display the 
effects of the new, deep, and solemn emotions with which the spirit 
had been awakened from its holiday dreamings. Hence the intro- 
duction of perspective, the cultivation of landscape painting, and the 
mingling together of divine expression with human sweetness in the 
Madonnas and the Holy Children. Hence the heavenly sweetness of 
Raphael, the delicious expansion of Claude, and the wild passion and 
terrible sublimity of Salvator Rosa. It was as impossible, from the 
texture of the public mind, that the Greek painters should have por- 
trayed the sentiments and the feelings expressed by the Italian 
masters, as, from the infancy of mechanical discoveries, that they 
should have forestalled them in variety of colouring. In perfection of 
outline, purity of style, and grandeur of form, the Ancients were, 
perhaps, beyond imitation ; but they must necessarily have been 
defective in variety, thought, sentiment ; and destitute of the mingled 
charms of those divine figures in which the Italian masters have 
appeared to blend the eternal with the earthly — in which the expres- 
sion has been lighted up from brighter worlds, and the colours have 
seemed fresh from a brush dipped in the dews of heaven, and directed 
by the finger of an angel. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

A Genius, with Thyrsus and Basket of Flowers. From a painting found at 

Civita. Antiq. D' Herculan. grav. par David, torn. iv. fig. 74 . . viii 
Zeus. In the old Greek style. From a basso-relievo in the Capitol at Rome. 

Hope's Costumes of the Ancients, fig. 47 . . . . . x 

Temple of Zeus Olympus at Athens. G. F. Sargent ... 1 

Temple of Nem^an Zeus. G. F. Sargent 10 

Greek Sacrifices to Zeus. From Bardon. G. F. Sargent . . .11 
Apollo as the Rayed Sun. Visconti, Illust. Monum. Borghesiani. 

G. F. Sargent ,12 

View of Delphi, with the Oracular Cave. G. F. Sargent . . 13 
View of Eleusis. G. F. Sargent . . . . . .14 

Chariot Racing. Isthmian Games. Martin and Corbould . . .16 
Boxing with the Cestus. Nemsean Games. Bardon . . . .18 

Zeus ; with Statue of Victory. Rope's Costumes of the Ancients, No. 196 . 19 
Chariot Racing. Olympic Games. Panofka's Bilder Antiken Lebens, 

tafel iii. fig. 6 20 

Foot Racing. Olympic Games. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. i. . . 20 
Armed Racer. Olympic Games. Rossi's Gemme Antiche, vol. iv. fig. 46 . 21 
Horse Racing. Olympic Games. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. iii. fig. 1 . 21 
Musical Contest. Pythian Games. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. iv. . 23 
The Victor Crowned. Olympic Games. Barry . . . .25 

View of Mount Olympus. G. F. Sargent . . . . .26 

Cronos. From an Antique Gem ....... 28 

Zeus and the Titans. Midler's Denkmdler der Alien Kunst, vol. i. plate 3 29 
Centaur and Eros (Cupid). Baccolta di Rossi, plate 72 . .35 

Zeus, with Thunderbolt. From a statue in the Gallery of Florence. Hope's 

Costumes of the Ancients, No. 154 . . . . . .42 

Zeus, Athene, and Artemis. Group from the Antique. G. F. Sargent. 43 
Statue of Dionysus. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst, vol. ii. plate 33 . 44 
Demeter. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst, vol. i. plate 8 . . . .49 

Demeter, Hades, and Persephone. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst . . 50 
Apollo Belvidere. The Pythian Apollo . . . . . .52 

Leto pursued by the Serpent Pvtiio. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst, 

vol. i. plate 13 53 

Helios in his Car. From a wall painting discovered at Portici. Antiq. 

D' Herculaneum, t. iv. fig. 17 ....... 56 

Hermes. From a painting found at Civita. Antiq. D' Herculan. gravees par 

David, vol v. . . . . . . . . .58 

Zeus, Here, Poseidon, and Hermes. Bartolo's Admiranda . .60 
Group of Dolphins, Sea-horses, etc. From a painting discovered at 

Portici. Antiq. D' Herculan. grav. par David . . . .61 

Group of Sea-horses, Tritons, etc. Found at Portici. Antiq. D 'Her- 
culan. grav. par David ........ 62 

Birth of Aphrodite. Bartolo's Admiranda . ... 64 



506 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

Here, Fig. 1, in the old Greek style. From a basso-relievo in the Capitol of 

Rome. Hope's Costumes of the Ancients, No. 47 . . .65 

Here, Fig. 2, Juno Lanuvina. From a statue in the Vatican. Hope's 

Costumes of the Ancients, No. 164 . . . . . .65 

Athene, Fig. 1. The old Greek style, from a basso-relievo in the Capitol. 

Hope's Costumes of the Ancients . . • . . . .66 
Athene, Fig. 2. From a statue at Florence. Hope's Costumes of the 

Ancients, No. 74 ........ 

Athene and Chariot. From Museo Borbonico. Mull. Denk. der Alt. 

Kunst ........... 

Hephaistos making the Shield of Achilles. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst 

Sacrifice to Artemis. Bardon . 

Artemis ........... 

The Infant Heracles. Mus. Borbonico ...... 

Bellerophon and Chimera. Bossi's Gemme Antiche, vol. iii. plate 101 . 
Action and his Dogs. Borghese Collection ..... 

(Edipus and the Sphynx. Found at Herculaneum on the tomb of the 

Nasos. Antiq. D'Herculan. grav. par David ..... 
Building of the Ship Argo. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst , 
Arimaspi and Griffins. Mull. Denk. der Alt. Kunst .... 
Theseus, Hippolyte, and Deinomache. From a Greek vase. Hope's 

Costumes of the Ancients, No. 22 . . . . . • • 
Theseus and the Amazons. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. vol. i. taf. 28 
Lapith^e and Centaurs. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. 28 . 
Coin of Ilium in the Troad. Hunterian Museum .... 
Ajax, Hector, and Patroclus. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. . 

View of Mount Parnassus. G. F. Sargent 

View of Thebes ; from the road to Platea. G. F. Sargent . 
View of the Katabothra of Lake Copais. G. F. Sargent 
View of Cape Leucadia ; the Lover's Leap. G. F. Sargent 
View of the Port of Corinth. G. F. Sargent .... 
View of Sparta, with Mount Taygetus and the River Eurotas. 

G. F. Sargent 

View of Achaia. After Williams. G. F. Sargent 
Gate of Lions, Messenia. G. F. Sargent 
Lycurgus. Visconti, Lconographie Grecque 
Coin of Laced^emon. Hunterian Museum . 
Coin of jEgina. B. B. Green 
Greek Warriors. Bronzes in the British Museum 
Coin of Messenia. Hunterian Museum 
Coin of Corinth, with Pegasus. Hunterian Museum 
Ruins of the Temple of Poseidon at Corinth. G. 
Acropolis of Athens. Martin and Gorbould 
Coin of Ephesus. Hunterian Museum 
Coin of Samos. Hunterian Museum . 
View of Ephesus. Martin and Gorbould 
Coin of Athens. Hunterian Museum 
Coin of Crotona. B. B. Green 



F. Sargent 



66 

67 

69 
72 
73 
74 
88 
95 

96 
103 
108 

109 
110 
111 

113 
116 
121 
123 
124 
127 
128 

132 
135 
136 
138 
154 
155 
157 
160 
161 
163 
164 
168 
169 
169 
170 
172 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 507 

Page 

Solon. Visconti, Iconog. Grecque ....... 176 

Coin of Phocis ; head with laurel wreath and bull's head. Hunterian Col- 
lection 191 
Ruins of the Temple of Cybele at Sardis. Martin and Corbould . 209 
Ancient Ship ............ 213 

Pass of Thermopylae, with Tombs of the Spartans. G. F. Sargent . 214 
Miltiades. Visconti, Iconog. Grecque ...... 217 

View of Mount Athos. G. F. Sargent ...... 223 

Source of the Scamander, Mount Ida. G. F. Sargent . . . 224 
View of Thessalonica : a Grecian House and Court-yard . . . 227 
Themistocles. Visconti, Iconog. Grecque . . . . . .228 

View of Plat^a. G. F. Sargent . . . ... . 257 

Remains of the Temple of Zeus the Liberator in the Troad. G. F. 

Sargent . . .» . . .. -. 267 

Athens Restored. G. F. Sargent 268 

Pericles. Visconti, Iconog. Grecque . . . . . .275 

View of Corinth. Martin and Corbould . . . . . .291 

Alcibiades. Visconti, Iconog. Grecque ...... 292 

Coin of Sicily. Hunterian Museum . . . . . . .298 

HermtE, or ancient Termini ........ 300 

Persian Crowns . . . 31 3 

Tumulus on the Plain of Marathon. G. F. Sargent . . . 314 
Ancient War-fort and Battering-ram. After Bardon. G. F. Sargent 356 
Interior of a Greek House. Composed from the remains at Pompeii. 

G. F. Sargent 357 

Greek Heroes in Car. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. vi 360 
Greek Warrior. From a fictile vase. Hope's Costumes of the Ancients, 

No. 67 . 366 

Ancient Surgery. Nestor giving a draught to Machaon. Terra-cotta, 

British Museum. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. vii. . . . 367 

Helmet and Coat of Mail 373 

Sacrifice to Dionysus. Neapolitan Museum. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. 

taf. xiii 374 

Ancient Costumes : Lydia, Media, Persia, Phrygia, Judaea, Rome, Greece, 

and Asia Minor. G. F. Sargent ....... 383 

Athenian Exercises. Vase, Blacasschen Mus. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. 

taf. i 387 

Musical Entertainment. From an ancient painting. Antiq. D'Herculan. 

grav. par David, torn. ii. plate 57 ...... 389 

Greek Musician ; the Double Flute 390 

Musical Prize. Hamilton Vases. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. iv. . 397 
Grecian Philosopher. Hope's Costumes of the Ancients . . . 400 

Boy Reading. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. i 403 

Greek Youth attired by his Mother for the Public Games. Panof. 

Griechinnen und Griechen, plate 1 ...... 404 

Greek Warrior setting odt for the Wars. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. 

plate 17 404 

Ancient Musical Instruments 406 

Light-armed Greek Soldier. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. i. . .413 
Aspasia. Canini's Iconografia, plate 92 . . . . .414 



508 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

A Lady writing, with Style and Waxen Tablet. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. 

taf. xix 419 

Grecian Marriage Car. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb.- taf. xvii. . . 420 

Household Vessels. British Museum 422 

Seals and Signet Rings • . . . • . . .427 

Metallic Mirrors 428 

Portrait of Socrates. Visconti, Iconog. Grecque .... 429 
Greek Cock-fighting. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. .... 430 
Pyrrhic Dance. Marble frieze. Gerhard, Ant. Pic. Panof. Bild. Antik. 

Leb. taf. ix « 440 

Athene in Car. Tassie Catalogue, plate 26 . . . • . 447 
Greek Table arranged for a Feast. Bardon ..... 448 

Guests reclining at Table 450 

Wine Vessels, &c. British Museum ...... 451 

Dancing and Tumbling Girls. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. taf. xi. . . 454 

Funeral Feast. From an Etruscan vase 456 

Funeral Ceremonies. Panof. Bild. Antiq. Leb. taf. xx. 460 
Funeral Pile. Bardon ......... 466 

Sculptured Vase. Sacrifice of Iphigenia ; with Achilles and Greek Hero. 

From a marble vase, by Phidiab. Bartolo's Admiranda . . . 467 
Ancient Sculptors modelling a Statue. Panof. Bild. Antik. Leb. 

taf. viii 491 

Perseus and Andromeda. From a painting found at Civita. Antiq. 

L)' Herculan. grav. par David. G. F. Sargent .... 492 
Bacchante. From an ancient wall painting. Antiq. D' 'Herculan. grav. par 

David, torn. i. plate 69 ....... 504 

Genii. From an ancient painting found at Gragnano. Antiq. D'Hercidan. 

grav. par David, torn. iv. fig. 70 ....... 508 

Ancient Crowns 524 

Eros ; in a Car drawn by Dolphins. Possi's Gemme Antiche, torn. iii. 

plate 18 536 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



ON THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF GREECE. 

" It is admitted by all the Grecian writers that the original inhabitants of Greece were mere 
savages feeding on acorns, living in caves, and clothing themselves with the skins of beasts. 
Of what race or descent these were, it is impossible now to discover." — Sir John Stoddart. 

This generally-received opinion is. however, disputed by Mr. Fynes Clinton, who contends 
that the four immigrations under Cecrops (1556), Cadmus (1550), Danaus (1485), and Pelops 
(12S3), are " not such as to deserve to be accounted the introduction of a new race of people, 
such as is produced by force of arms or by large bodies of invaders overwhelming the 
ancient inhabitants." Mr. Clinton adds, " These establishments were made within three 
centuries of the Trojan war, when the country was already in the possession of powerful 
tribes, which subsisted after these establishments, and increased so far as to supersede them. 
All these four settlements are examples of a smaller received into a larger number." 

The early inhabitants of this classic land cannot be distinguished so much according to 
their respective localities, as according to their several tribes, for we find that most, if not 
all of them, migrated, as circumstances required, from one district to another ; their general 
situation may, however, be thus defined : — 

The Pelasgi principally occupied the Peloponnesus, from which they extended them- 
selves into Thessaly, &c. These people were the most powerful of all the tribes ; they were 
found in all parts of Greece, hence the whole country at one time was 'called Pelasgia. 

The Leleges were established in Laconia, in the eastern part of the Peloponnesus, called 
from them Lelegia, and in Megara. 

The Caucones dwelt in the western part of the Peloponnesus. 

The Dryopes had their principal settlement in Mount (Eta, from which they extended 
themselves across the country westward to Ambracia. 

The Acmes, Hi/antes, and Temnices inhabited Bceotia and part of Euboea. Subsequently 
they were found in the west of the Peloponnesus. 

The Carians occupied the islands of the iEgsean Sea. These people were supposed to be 
Leleges. 

" The early history of the Greeks, as well as the early history of most nations, emanated 
from tradition, and supplied their bards with subjects of song for several centuries. But it 
does not follow from hence that early Grecian history was an invention because it was 
poetical. The subjects of history, as presented by tradition and sung by the bards, were only 
interwoven with fictions ; and so modelled as to gratify the national pride, and to adorn the 
popular religion. It is at the same time true that little credit is to be given to the details of 
Grecian history before the era of the Olympiads." — History of Greek Literature. 



For the better illustration of Grecian affairs, we have added chronological tables of Asia 
Minor and of the Persian Empire, down to the same period as that to which our Greek 
chronology extends, namely, b.c. 404. 



[As the fabulous, mythical, and uncertain periods of Greek chronology have occasioned 
much discussion among eminent historians and chronographers, and as it would be a hope- 
less task to attempt a reconciliation of their differences, we have deemed it fair to those 
eminent authorities to give insertion to their respective and opposing dates, leaving it to the 
judgment of the reader to adopt those which best accord with his own views and feelings. 1 
509 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



2089 Sicyon founded by iEgialeus. (Lenglet, 

1773; others, 1856.) 
2042 Arrival of Uranus in Greece. 
1856 Argos founded by Inachus. — Euseb. 
(Phoroneus founded it in 1753, ac- 
cording to others.) 
From the time of Inachus to the in- 
vasion of Danaus nine (or ten) kings 
reigned at Argos; they were called 
Inachidae, from the name of the 
founder of the kingdom ; but the 
name of the kingdom itself was not 
given till the reign of Argus, the 
fourth of the Inachidae, in the year 
B.C. 1711. 
? Revolt of the Titans under Atlas. 
? War of the giants. 
1807 Phoroneus succeeds Inachus. 

He introduces a fixed code of laws. 
His reign is prolonged to 60 years. 
1796 Ogyges, king of Boeotia. 
1773 Phoroneus introduces the practice of 

offering sacrifices to the gods. 
1760 Deluge in Attica, in the time of Ogyges 
(1796 Africanus; 1764 Blair; 1749 
Oxford tables). 
1747 Apis, the third of the Inachidae, reigns 
35 years (? 1707 according to some). 
1711 Argus, son of Niobe, the fourth of the 

Inachidae, founds Argos. 
1710 CEnotrus leads a colony of Arcadians 

into Italy. 
1700 The Cyclopian walls are built. 
1684 Pelasgus I. succeeds his brother Argus. 
1652 Criasus, son of Argus, succeeds Pe- 
lasgus I. (another date 1641). 
1617 Phorbas, of Argos, succeeds Criasus. 
1582 Chronology of the Arundelian marbles 

begins with this date. 
1558 Deucalion leads the Hellenes into 

Phocis, &c. (1433 Blair). 
1556 Cecrops, from Sais. in Egypt, comes 
into Attica, where he founds a kgdm. 
He abolishes the practice of offering 
bloody sacrifices to Zeus. 
? Cranaus, the second king in Attica. 
1552 A flood compels the Hellenes to retire 
into Thessaly ; see 1558. (? 1503.) 
The Hellenes expel the Pelasgi, who 
emigrate into Italy. (? 1493 or 1313.) 
Triopas succeeds Phorbas at Argos. 
Polycaon seizes part of the kdom., which 
he calls after his wife, Messenia. 
1550 Cadmus, from Phoenicia, comes into 
Greece ; he founds Thebes, in Cad- 
meis, afterwards Boeotia (1124). 
Phoenician letters introd. by Cadmus. 
Corn and olives cultivated in Attica. 
1534 Dancing to the measure of time in- 
vented by the Curetes. 
1521 Amphictyon, the third king of Attica. 
510 



B. C 

1521 



1520 
1516 



1514 



1506 

1504 

1503 
1500 
1498 



1495 
1494 



1493 
? 

1490 



? 

1486 
1485 



1475 



1459 



1457 
1453 

1438 
1433 
1430 
1426 



Pelasgus, king of the Arcadians, teaches 
them to adopt acorns instead of herbs 
for food ; his grateful people reward 
him with divine honours. 

Ephyra, or Corinth, founded. 

Lelex fnds. the Laconian kgdm. (? 1490.) 

From him the Leleges were named. 

The Lupercalia instituted by Lycaon. 

Nyctemus, king of Arcadia. 

Areas succeeds Nyctemus in Arcadia. 

He gives his name to the country ; in- 
troduces agriculture, and teaches the 
art of spinning wool. For these im- 
provements he and his mother are 
made a constellation. 

Aleus, king of Arcadia, celebrated as a 
builder of temples. 

Institution of the Areopagus. 

Crotopus succeeds Triopas at Argos. 

Flood of Deucalion.— Euseb. (? 1552 
and 1529 ; other dates are also given.) 

Deucalion comes into Attica. 

Danaus, an Egyptian, comes into Argos. 

The Amphictyonic Council established 
at Thermopylae by Amphictyon. 

He interprets dreams & observes omens. 

Institution of the Panathenaean games. 

Erichthonius the fourth king of Attica. 

He teaches his subjects the art of hus- 
bandry, and introduces the Eleusinian 
mysteries. (See 1356.) 

Cadmus founds Thebes — see 1550. 

Sthenelus reigns at Argos. 

Pandion the fifth king of Attica. 

Lelex first king of Laconia. (? 1516.) 

Lacedaemon marries Sparta. 

The city of Sparta founded. 

Crockeryware introduced from Egypt. 

Cars, chariots, and harness, invented 
by Erichthonius of Athens. 

Gelanor, last of the Inachidae, at Argos. 

Danaus comes into Greece, navigating 
the first ship ever seen there. 

He introduces water pumps, &c. 

Danaus deposes Gelanor and succeeds 
him as king of Argos (1460 Blair). 

Forty-nine of his daughters destroy 
their husbands on the night of their 
nuptials, according to his command ; 
Hypermnestra alone refuses to obey 
— she spares her husband Lynceus. 

Reign of Hellen — the mythical ancestor 
of all the Greeks (Hellenes). 

Potydore reigns at Thebes. 

Perseus, from Argos, reigns at Mycene. 

Institution of the Olympic games at 
Elis by the Idaei Dactyli. — Euseb. 

Pandion reigns in Attica. 

Deucalion's flood.— Bl. ; Clint. (? 1503.) 

Labdacus rules at Thebes. 

Musaeus fl. — Arund. marb. (? 1180.) 



b. c. 1425.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[B.C. 1212. 



| 1425 Lynceus, the son-in-law of Danaus, de- 
thrones him and reigns in his stead. 
Institution of the festival of the Flam- 
beau, in honour of Hypermnestra, 
wife of Lynceus. See 1475. 
1415 Melampus introduces the Dionysia. 
1410 The king of Sicyon rebuilds Corinth. 
1406 Iron discovered by the Idaei Dactyli. 
1397 Orpheus institutes the Panathenean and 
Chalcean festivals (? 1495 and 1234). 
Sisyphus establishes the kingdom of 
Corinth (? 1520 or 1410). 
1390 Crockeryware in general use. 
1388 Thebes besieged and taken by Am- 
phion and Zethus ; Lycus, the regent, 
and his wife, Dirce, murdered. 
? Tyndareus and Leda married; Helen 
'born (probably later ? 1248). 
1385 Kape of Ganymede. 
1384 Abas succeeds Lynceus at Argos. 

Corinth rebuilt. See 1397, &c. 
1383 Erechtheus, sixth king of Attica. 

"Worship of Athene established in Attica 

by Erechtheus. 
Ceres comes into Greece and teaches the 
method of making bread. 
1370 Prcetus and Acrisius, sons of Abas, of 
Argos, invent bucklers. 
They quarrel respecting the govern- 
ment of the kingdom (? 1344). 
1331 Prcetus restored to Tirynth by the aid 
of Jobates, king of Lycia. 
Bellerophon comes to Argos. 
1376 Sisyphus seizes Ephyra (Corinth), which 
he exalts into a kingdom (?1397 or! 326) . 
Institution of the Isthmian games. 
1356 Eumolpus,the first hierophant,introduces 
the Eleusinian mysteries (? 1494). 
Cecrops EL, seventh king of Athens. 
1 347 Erechtheus slain in battle with the Eleu- 
sinians. 

1344 Acrisius rebels against his twin-brother 
Prcetus (? 1370). 
? Pandion II., eighth king of Athens. 
1333 Aphidas, Azan, Elatus, Arcadian chiefs. 
1326 Sisyphus seizes Ephyra (?1397 and 1376). 
The Isthmian and Pythian games insti- 
tuted (? 1376, 1263). 
13-20 Institution of the Lycaean games. 
1313 Perseus of Argos founds Mycene (? 1457). 
Letters introduced by Cadmus.— Herod., 
Soph. (? 1550). 
1302 Electryon succeeds Perseus at Mycene. 
1300 Birth of Heracles (? 1261). 
1296 Sthenelus succeeds his brother Elec- 
tryon at Mycene. 
1293 Greek colonies settle on the eastern and 

southern shores of Sicily. 
1289 Eurysthenes, king of Mycene. 

Heracles undertakes daring enterprises 
at the command of Eurysthenes. 
? Banishment of Heracles and his sons. 
1283 JEgeus invades Attica and seizes upon 
the throne— the ninth king. 

5n 



| 1283 Pelops comes from Lydia into Greece, 
and gives his name to the southern 
part of it (? 1313). 
1280 Linus, the poet, flourishes. 
1276 Laius slain by his son (Edipus. 
1 266 Atreus and Agamemnon kings of xlrgos. 
Tyndareus, king of Sparta (1388). 
QMipus resolves the enigmas of the 
Sphinx; is made king of Thebes, 
marries his mother, &c. 
1264 Murder of Phryxus by the k. of Colchis. 
1263 Argonautic expedition under Jason, &c. 
— the first naval expedition on record. 
Institution of the Pythian games by 

Adrastus (? 1326). 
Temple of Apollo at Delphi, built by the 
Amphictyons. 
1261 Heracles born at Thebes (? 1300). 
1260 Orpheus fl. (some place him later). 
1257 Theseus unites the cities of Attica under 

one government (? 1235). 
1250 Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, redeemed 
from Hades by the music of his lyre. 
The poet Musseus fl. (? later). 
1248 Birth of Helen. 

1241 War between Heracles and Erginus. 

Death of Amphytrion. 
1240 Theseus and the Minotaur. 

Daedalus of Athens invents several me- 
chanical instruments. 
? W r ar of B eracles in Laconia. 
1235 iEgeus throws himself into the sea — 
hence called the JEgean sea. 
Theseus, his son, tenth king in Attica. 
He gathers his people into one city, 

which he names Athens (? 1257). 
The Heraclidee received at Athens. 
1234 Theseus ordains observance of the Pana- 
thenasa and Chalcaea every fifth year. 
1231 Theseus defeats the Amazons. 
1228 Theseus carries off Helen (? 1203). 
1227 Olympic games of Heracles at Pelops. 
1225 First Theban war: the seven captains; 
women of Thebes (? 1230 or 1213). 
Trojan expedition under Heracles. 
1224 Dice invented by Palamedes 
1222 Heracles celebrates the Olympic games. 
1216 The second Theban war: the women of 
Epigoni ; Thebes taken. 
Castor and Pollux rescue Helen. 
She is married to Menelaus (? 1201). 
1215 W T ars of II eracles with the Driopes. 
1214 Abduction of Helen by Paris (.' 1198). 
Reign of Thersander in Thebes. 
? War in Elis betw. Heracles and Augeas. 
? Heracles slays the Molionidae. 
1213 CSdipus and his sons (see 1266). 
1212 Murder of Iphitus by Heracles. 

Heracles flees to CSneus, k. of iEtolia. 
? He comes to Ceyx, king of Trachis. 
? Expels the Driopes from northern 

Greece (see 1215). 
? Cycnus slain by Heracles. 
? War with Eurytes, king of CEcbalia. 



b. c. 1209.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[B.C. 926. 



1209 Death of Heracles on Mount (Eta. 

? Expulsion of the Heraclidse from Tiryn- 
thus by Eurystheus, king of Mycene. 
? The Heraclidas settle at Tricorythus. 
1207 Eurystheus is slain by Hyllus. 
Atreus succeeds him (see 1266). 
First Theban war (? 1225). 
1205 Menestheus succeeds Theseus at Athens. 
1203 The Heraclidse attempt to gain the Isth- 
mus (see 1180). 
Hyllus killed by Echemus, king of 

Tegea, in single combat. 
Abduction of Helen by Theseus (? 1228). 
1201 Atreus assassinated by iEgisthus. 

? Helen is recovered from Theseus and* 
married to Menelaus of Mycene. 
1200 Agamemnon reigns at Mycene ; he also 
becomes king of Sicyon and Corinth. 
1198 Paris carries off Helen (? 1214). 

Second Theban war (? 1216). 
1192 or 1193 The Trojan war. 

Agamemnon generalissimo of the army ; 

Agapenor heads the Arcadians, &c. 
Criminal intercourse of vEgisthus with 
Clytemnestra, queen of Agamemnon. 
1183 End of the Trojan war. 

Voyage of Menelaus and Helen com- 
mences (see 1176). 
Agamemnon murdered by Clytemnestra 

and iEgisthus. 
JEgisthus succeeds Agamemnon. 
1182 Demophoon succeeds Menestheus at 
Athens. 

1180 The Heraclida?, under Hyllus, endea- 
vour to gain thePeloponnesus (? 1203). 
Musaeus, son of Orpheus, fl. (? 1426). 
1179 Court of Ephetes established. 
1176 JEgisthus and Clytemnestra killed by 
Orestes, son of Agamemnon. 
Orestes succeeds to the kingdom of 
Argos. 

Menelaus and Helen arrive at Sparta. 

1174 Ephitus reigns in Arcadia. 

Helen banished from the Peloponnesus. 

1170 Neoptolemus, or Pyrrhus, cast on the 
shore of Ephyra (Corinth). 

1169 Orestes comes to Trcezene to be purified 
from the blood of his mother. 

1154 Second exped. of the Heraclidee to gain 
the Peloponnesus, led by Cleodseus. 

1149 Oxynthes reigns at Athens. 

1137 Apidas succeeds Oxynthes at Athens. 

1136 Assassination of Aphidas. 

? Melanthus, the Pylian, defeats Xuthus 
in single combat. 

1128 Deposition of Thymaetes, the last 
Theseid ; Melanthus chosen king. 

1124 Aristomachus heads the third expedi- 
tion of the Heraclidae into the Pelo- 
ponnesus. 

Thessaly occupied by the Thessali ; they 

expel the Bceoti. 
The Bceoti come into Cadmeis and give 

their name to the country. 
512 



1124 Migration of the JEolians. 
1106 Death of Orestes from the bite of a 
serpent. 

1104 Expulsion of the Achaaans. 

Return of the Heraclidae under Teme- 
nus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, 
grandsons of Hyllus. 
They divide their conquests : — Temenus 
has Argos ; Melanthus, Athens ; Aristo- 
demus, Sparta; Hippothus, Corinth. 
? The JEtolians, under Oxylus, take Elis. 
The Doric order of architecture. 
1102 The women of Arcadia repel the Lace 

dsemonian invaders. 
1100 The Biarchy at Sparta commenced — 
Eurysthenes and Procles reign con- 
jointly. 

The Nelidas, expelled from Messenia, 
come to Athens, under Alcmaeon and 
Melanthus, the founders of the two 
branches of the family Alcmasonidae. 

Migration of the iEolians into Asia 
Minor. 

1091 Codrus succeeds Melanthus at Athens. 
1088 Clisthenes, king of Sicyon ; in whose 

reign the kingdom is overthrown. 
1077 Naval supremacy of the Pelasgi. 
1074 Aletes, a descendant of Heracles, expels 

the Sisyphidse, and rules at Corinth. 
? Migration of Theras. 
1069 Self-sacrifice of Codrus (? 1045). 
1058 Agis and sons, kings of Sparta. 

? Expulsion of thelonians by the Achaeans. 
The Ionians take refuge in Corinth. 
1045 The Dorians overrun Attica. 

Codrus, the last king of Athens, offers 

himself a voluntary sacrifice to save 

his country (? 1069). 
1044 Emigration of Ionian colonists into 

Asia Minor under Neleus. 
1040 The Amphictyonic Council remodelled 

or revived (? 1000). 
1034 Ixion succeeds Aletes at Corinth. 
1033 Cyme founded. 

1025 Acastus succeeds Medon, perpetual 

archon at Athens. 
1024 Echastratus and Eurypion,kgs. of Sparta. 
1000 Amphictyonic Council (? 1498, 1040). 
996 Agelas, king of Corinth, succeeds Ixion. 
993 Decline of the naval power of the 
Pelasgi. 

992 Thracian supremacy of the sea. 

989 Labotas and Prytanis, kings of Sparta. 

Archippus, perpetual archon at Athens. 
970 Thersippus, perpetual archon at Athens. 
952 Doryssus and. Eunomus, kings of Sparta. 
947 Phorbas, perpetual archon at Athens. 
944 Hesiod fl.— Parian Chron. (? 937). 
937 Breast-plates invented by Jason. 

Hesiod fl. — Arund. marb. (? 907). 
935 Reign of Bacchis at Corinth (? 926). 
926 Birth of Lycurgus, son of Eunomus. 

Bacchis, a descendant of Aletes (1074). 
king of Corinth (? 935). 



b. c. 926.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[B. C. 728. 



926 His descendants were called Bacchiadaa. 

923 Agesilaus and Polydectes, kgs. of Sparta. 

916 Megacles, perpetual archon at Athens. 

914 Decline of the naval power of Thrace. 
? The iEtolian League. 

907 Hesiod of Ascra, in Boeotia, nourished. 
This date is generally deemed correct. 

889 Agelas rules at Corinth (? 996). 

888 Diognetus, perpetual archon at Athens. 

886 Homer's poems brought into Greece by 
Lycurgus from Asia Minor. 

884 Lycurgus establishes the senate and 
gives laws to the Spartans. — Erato- 
sthenes (?852, see 817). 
Revival of the Olympic games at Elis. 

879 Archelaus succeeds Agesilaus in Sparta. 

873 Archelaus and Charilaus, kgs. of Sparta. 
Lycurgus regent for Charilaus. 

869 Phidon, king of Argos,coins silver money 
and introduces scales and measures. 
Civil commotions at Sparta, arising from 
the unequal distribution of property. 

860 Pherecles, perpetual Archon at Athens. 

859 Eudemus rules at Corinth. 

852 Lycurgus's legislation (? 884, see 817). 

850 Hesiod flourished.— Bernhardy (? 944). 

848 "War declared against Polymnestor of 
Arcadia by Charilaus of Sparta. 

841 Ariphron, perpetual archon at Athens. 

834 Aristodemus rules at Corinth. 

828 Iphitus and Lycurgus revive the Olym- 
pian games at Elis (? 884). 

821 Thespieus, perpetual archon at Athens. 

819 Teleclus succeeds Archelaus in Sparta. 

817 Lycurgus delivers his code of laws to 
the Spartans (? 884 and 852). 
The government a mixed monarchy ; two 
kings; a senate of sixty aged men; 
five Ephori ; iron money. The Spar- 
tans formed the aristocratic caste, the 
Laconians were the subject and tax- 
paying caste. The land divided among 
39,000 families; but its cultivation 
confined to the Helots and forbidden 
the free citizens, as also handicraft, 
trading, and manual employments in 
general. The land could not be sold 
but might be bequeathed. Public 
tables ; no theatres. 

814 Caranus founds the kingdom of Macedon. 

813 Alcamenes of Sparta at war with the 
Messenians. 

809 Teleclus and Nicander, kings of Sparta. 

799 Agemon, king of Corinth. 

794 Agamestor, perpetual archon at Athens. 

786 The Corinthians build vessels having 
three benches of oars (triremes). 
This date is generally considered too 
early, see 703.— Blair, 707. 

783 Unsuccessful attempt of Phidon, tyrant 
of Argos, to take Corinth. 

783 Silver coined at yEgina by Phidon, king 
of Argos (?869;. 
fit. G.l 513 



783 Alexander reigns at Corinth. 

779 Alcamenes succeeds Teleclus at Sparta. 

778 JEschylus archon of Athens. 

776 Victory of Coroebus in the Sp<V°?> or 
foot-race of one stadium, at the Olym- 
pic games (see 884 and 828). 
Commencement of the Chronological 
Era of the Olympiads. 

lib Cinasthon, the poet, fl. about this time. 

774 Pandosia and Metapontus in Italy fndd. 

770 Theopompus succeeds Nicander at 
Sparta. 

765 The poet Eumelus of Corinth flourished. 
760 Olymp. 5 ; JEschines, victor. 

Institution of the Spartan Ephori by 
Theopompus (see 817). 
758 Thelestes succeeds Alexander in Corinth. 
754 Alcmseon, the last of the perpetual Ar- 

chons at Athens. 
753 A colony from Chalcis founds Catania, 

near Mount iEtna, in Sicily. 
752 Olymp. 7; Daicles, victor — the first who 
received the Olympic crown. 
Charops, the first decennial archon at 
Athens (see 754). 
750 The Milesians masters of the sea. 
748 Olympiad 8 ; Auticles, victor. 

Phidon, of Argos, celebrates the games. 
747 Deposition and murder of Thelestes, 
king of Corinth. 
Automenes succeeds Thelestes. 
745 The Corinthian oligarchy of the Bac- 
chiadse, at the head of which is a 
Prytanis, with supreme power, an- 
nually elected. 
Automenes elected the first Prytanis. 
744 Eumulus fl.— Euseb. (? 760). 

The silver and copper coinage and the 
new weights and measures of Phidon, 
of Argos, current in the Peloponnesus. 
743 The First Messenian War — between the 

Spartans and Messenians. 
742 Polydorus succeeds Alcamenes at Sparta . 

Esimides, 2nd decen. archon at Athens. 
735 Battle between 300 Argives and 300 
Spartans ; only two Argives and one 
Spartan are left. 
Colony of Ionians under Theucles sent 
to Naxos in Sicily. 
734 Archias leads a colony from Corinth to 
Sicily ; they found Syracuse. 
Actaaon put to death in Sicily. 
733 The Partheniaa, or sons of the virgins, 
of Sparta. 

732 Clidias, third decennl. archon at Athens. 
730 Battle of Ithome ; Emphaes, king of the 
Messenians, killed. 
Aristodemus chosen to succeed him. 
Catania planted by Euarchus (? 753). 
729 Perdiccas, king of Macedon. 
728 Olymp. 13 ; Diocles, victor. 

Philolaus,ofCorinth,who now flourishes, 
gives laws to the Thebans. 

2 L 



c. 723.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[b. o. 644. 



23 



722 
720 



718 
716 

715 

714 



713 
712 
710 
709 
703 



707 
706 

703 

702 
700 

693 
692 
690 
688 

686 
685 

684 

683 

681 



Olymp. 14; Dasmon, victor. 
The SiavAos, or foot-race of two stadia, 

added to the games. . _ 

The Spartans defeated by theMessenians. 
Colony sent to Megara Hyblaea. 
Capture of Ithome by the Spartans; 
Aristodemus kills himself; a heavy 
tribute levied upon the Messenians. 
End of the First Messenian War. 
Hippomenes,4thdecen.archonatAthens. 
Olymp. 15 ; Orsippus, victor. 
The 86X(-x ?— a longer foot-race than the 

StotAos— added to the games. 
Zeuxidamus succeeds Theopompus, king 

of Sparta. 
Olymp. 16 ; Pythagoras, victor. _ 
The Messenians found Mylae m the 

Chersonesus. 
Gela, in Sicily, founded. 
Aristocrates I., of Arcadia, violates one 
priestess of Diana, for which he is 
put to death. _ 
Byzantium fnded. by Athenians (? 658). 
Hippomenes, of Athens, execrable lor 
his cruelty, exposes his own daughter 
to be devoured by horses. 
Deposition of Hippomenes of Athens. 
Leocrates, fifth decen. archon at Athens. 
Myscellus plants Crotona. 
EurycratessucceedsPolydorusmSparta. 

Olymp. 18; Tellis, victor. 
The v6\n, or wrestling, and the irwaOXov, 
or leaping, throwing the discus, &c, 
added to the games. 
Conspiracy of the Parthemae and the 

Helots of Sparta frustrated. 
Thasos, Corcyra, and Parion founded. 
Archilocus the poet, inventor of iambics, 

flourishes at Thasos. .. 
The Athenian navy commanded by 

Aminocles of Corinth. 
The Trimeres built at Corinth (7 78b). 
Corcyra built by the Corinthians (? 707). 
Apsander, sixth decen. archon at Athens. 
Flourishing sea-trade of Corinth. 
Simonides of Amorgus fl.— Bernhardy. 
Erixias 7th decen. archon at Athens. 
Gela, in Sicily, fd.— according to some. 
Olymp. 23. Icarius, victor. 
Onomastus adds the ™xm (**mh or 

boxing, to the games. 
Anaxidamus succeeds Zeuxidamus king 

of Sparta. 
The Second Messenian War (?679). 
The Messenians unite with Argos, Ar- 
cadia, and Elis, against Sparta. 
Olymp. 24 ; Cleoptolemus, victor. 
Death of Erixias the last of the decen- 
nial archons at Athens. 
Creon the first annual archon at Athens. 
Tyrtseus, the Athenian poet, flourishes 

at Sparta. 
Lysias archon at Athens. 
514 



681 Aristocrates II. of Arcadia stoned to 
death for treason against his country. 
The Republic of Arcadia. 
680 Olymp. 25 ; Thalpis, victor. 

Paoron adds the Juror, &c, or chariot 
race, to the games. 
679 Second Messenian war (? 685,Pausanias). 
Battle of the trenches ; the Messenians 
defeated. — Pausanias. 
676 Anaxander succeeds Eurycrates in the 

government of Sparta. , 
Terpander begins to flourish. 
675 The Carnian festivals of Sparta. 

Emigration of the Messenians to Zancle 
and Sicily (? 668). 
674 Polymnastus flourishes from this time. 
672 The Lesbians rulers of the sea. 

Pantaleon, king of Pisa, in Elis, joins the 
Messenian war. 
? The Pisatse transfer their alliance irom 
the Eleans to the Messenians. 
671 Leostratus, archon at Athens. 

Alcman, lyric poet, flourishes at Sparta. 
670 Ira captured. 
669 Peisistratus archon at Athens. 

Battle of Hysiae ; the Lacedaemonians 
defeated by the Argives. 
, 668 Olymp. 28 ; Charmus, victor. 
Antisthenes, archon at Athens. 
End of the second Messenian war ; ac- 
cording to Pausanias. 
Emigration of the Messenians to Sicily ; 
where they plant Messene (? 675). 
665 Celebration of Gymnopajdia at Sparta. 

Archilochus and Simonides flourish. 
664 Acrse, in Sicily, founded. 
662 Selymbria, in Thrace, founded. 

Aristoxenus, the poet, flourishes. 
660 Olymp. 30 ; Chionis H., victor. 

Zaleucus, the Locrian legislator, fl. 
659 Miltiades II. archon at Athens. 

The Lacedaemonians take Phigalia. 
658 Byzantium colonized by Megarians. 
655 Expulsion of the Bacchiadae from Co- 
rinth by Cypselus ; the ofl&ce of Pry- 
tanis abolished. 
Cypselus the first king at Corinth. 
654 Acanthus and Stagira in Macedonia fd. 
652 The Clazomenians plant Abdera. 
648 Olymp. 33; Gylis, victor. 

The Tro/yKpcxTiov, or heavy athletic sports, 
and the k&ijs, or horse race, added to 
the games. 
Chariot race won by Myron of Sicyon. 
Archidamus succeeds Anaxidamus, king 

of Sparta. , _, 

Himera, in Sicily, founded by Theron. 
646 Terpander introduces his improvements 

in Spartan music. 
644 Olymp. 34 ; Stomus, victor. 

Panteleon, of Pisa, celebrates the games. 
Dropilus, archon of Athens. 
Casmenae, in Sicily, founded. 



b. c. 640.] 



GEEEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[B.C. 566. 



640 Olymp. 35 ; Sphaeron, victor. 

Cylon wins in the SiavXas. 

Philip I. king of Macedon. 
633 Damasias archon of Athens. 

Battus' first colony to Cyrene. 
637 Euricratides successor to Anaxander, 
king of Sparta. 

Battus' second colony. 
633 The Milesian colonies of Istrus & Tonii. 
632 Olymp. 37 ; Euryclidus, victor. 

The irdx-q TvaLa-iv and Spo/xos, foot race and 
wrestling for boys, added to the games. 

Birth of Stesichorus in Sicily. 
631 Battus plants Cyrene (? 639 and 637). 
629 Periander rules in Corinth (Blair, 625). 

He encourages literature and the arts. 
628 The Milesians establish themselves in 

Egypt- 

The Megarians col. Byzantium (? 658). 
627 Lipara, in Sicily, colonized (? 579). 
626 Proclus, tyrant of Epidaurus. 
625 Arion, lyric poet and inventor of the 
Cyclian chorus, flouriihes. 
Epidamnus, in Illyria, founded. 
62-4 Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus. 
623 The Milesian wars begin. 
621 Laws of Draco, the Athenian archon, 
" written in blood " (? 623). 
Their severity renders them inoperative. 
620 Cylon's rebellion at Athens ; suppressed 
by the aristocrats. 
Sacrilege of the archon — Megacles. 
Cylon, and his adherents, treacherously 
put to death (? 612). 
612 Stesichorus, the poet, flourishes. 
611 Periander, tyrant of Ambracia. 
610 Anaximander born. 

Escape of the poet Arion from pirates. 
608 Panaetius, tyrant of Leontium. 

War in Boeotia between the Athenians 

and Mityleneans. 
The poet Alcaeus engages in the war. 
606 Single combat of Pittacus and Phrynon. 
Mediation of Periander, king of Corinth, 

between Athens and Mytilene. 
Chersias, of Orchomenus, flourishes. 
602 JEropus, of Macedon, conquers Illyria. 
600 Pherecydes, the philosopher, born. 

Arithmetic brought into Greece from 

Egypt by Thales about this time. 
Flourishing period of the Doric and 
Ionic orders of architecture. 
599 Camarina, in Sicily, colonized. 
596 Epimenides visits Athens. 

Agesicles successor of Archidamus king 
of Sparta. 

595 The Sacred (Cirrhsean) war commences. 
Chilon, the philosopher, flourishes. 
Philombrotus, Athenian archon. 
Expulsion of the Alcmaeonidse from 

Athens ; they retire to Phocis. 
Sappho, Alcaeus,Damophilus and Erinna, 

poets, flourish. 



594 Solon, the Athenian archon, legislates. 
The peculiar features of his form of 

government are as follow:— 
Citizens are divided into four classes, 
one of which is excluded from all 
state offices ; state offices without sala- 
ries ; an Archon, Basileus, Polemarch, 
and six Thesmothetes, aided by a 
senate of 400 annually elected, form 
the governing body. The power of 
the court of the Areopagus increased. 
Trade permitted ; home manufactories 
of earthen & metal wares encouraged. 
593 Leon succeeds Eurycratides in Sparta. 

Dropides archon at Athens. 
592 Anacharsis arrives at Athens. 

Eucrates, Athenian archon. 
591 The Amphictyons, under Eurolychus, 
capture Cirrha. 
Pythian games at Delphi ; the first. 
Simonides, Athenian archon. 
588 Damophon, son of Pantaleon, k. of Pisa. 
587 The seven wise men of Greece : — Solon, 
Athens ; Periander, Corinth ; Pittacus, 
Mitylene ; Chilon, Sparta ; Tliales, Mi- 
letus ; Cleobolus and Bias. 
586 The Cirrhaeans conquered, and end of 
the sacred war (see 595). 
Celebration of the Isthmian andPythian 
games ; Sacadas, of Argos, obtains the 
musical prize, and Echembrotus, Arca- 
dian flute-player, also obtains a prize. 
From this year these games are com- 
puted. 

Damasias I. archon at Athens. 
585 Lycophron, son of Periander, slain. 
Death of Periander, king of Corinth. 
Psammetichus succeeds. 
582 The second Pythian games ; Clisthenes 
of Sicyon, victor; Sacadas again 
takes the musical prize. 
Agrigentum, in Sicily, founded. 
581 End of the Cypselian dynasty at 

Corinth : a republic established. 
580 Olymp. 50 ; victor, Epitelidas. 

Two Hellanodicas from this time. 
578 Sacadas obtains the musical prize at 

the third Pythia. 
577 Archestratides, Athenian archon. 
576 Alcetas, king of Macedon. 
574 Pythocritus, of Sicyon, victor at the 

fourth Pythian games. 
572 i£sop, the fabulist, fl. — Bernhardy. 

The Pisaeans conqrd. by the Eliseans. 
571 Birth of Pythagoras. 
570 Aristomenes archon of Athens. 

Phalaris, of Agrigentum, in Sicily. 
568 Olymp. 53 ; victor, Agnon. 

Mycenae overthrown by the Argives. 
A school of statuary opened at Athens 
by Depaenus and Scylla. 
566 Celebration of the Panathenaean games 
at Athens. 



B.C. 566.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[B.C. 497. 



566 Restoration of the Nemasan games. 

They are continued in the first and third 
years of every Olympiad. 
562 Susarion and Dolon perform the first 
comedy at Athens. 
Endoeus, Athenian statuary, flourishes. 
560 Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, usurps 
the government. 
Comias archon at Athens. 
Anaxandrides and Ariston succeed Leon 

and Agesicles, kings of Sparta. 
Hegestratus archon at Athens. 
Death of Solon, the lawgiver. 
556 Olymp. 56 ; victor, Phgedrus. 

The "Chorus" introduced by Tisias, 

surnamed Stesichorus. 
Euthydemus archon at Athens. 
Chilon, the philosopher, one of the 
Spartan Ephori. 
554 Peisistratus, the tyrant, expelled Athens. 
553 Camarina, in Sicily, destroyed. 

Death of the poet Stesichorus. 
550 Olymp. 57 ; victor, Ladronius. 

The musical canon of Pythagoras. 
549 Phalaris, of Agrigentum, dies. 
Olymp. 58 ; victor, Diognetus. 
Erxiclides archon at Athens. 
548 Second tyranny of Peisistratus at Athens. 
The temple of Apollo at Delphi burnt 

by the Peisistratidae. 
Anaximenes and Anaximander, histo- 
rians, flourish. 
547 Peisistratus banished a second time. 
Contract of the Amphictyonic Council 
with the Alcmagonidae for the rebuild- 
ing of the temple at Delphi. 
544 Pherecydes, of Syros, philosopher, fl. 
542 Theognis, of Megara, poet, flourishes. 
540 Simonides, of Amorgus, flourishes. 
Amyntas I. king of Macedon. 
Corinthian order of architecture in- 
vented by Callimachus. 
Ibicus, of Rhegium, in Sicily, fl. 
539 Pythagoras, the philosopher, flourishes. 
537 Third tyranny of Peisistratus at Athens. 
536 The olive and vine trees carried from 
Attica into France by the Greek colo- 
nists who settle at Marseilles. 
535 Thespis, of Sicily, "the father of Come- 
dy," introduces tragedy & comedy into 
Athens ; he performed on his waggon. 
533 Thericles archon at Athens. 
528 Olymp. 63 ; victor, Parmenides. 
Zamolxis first king of Thrace. 
Before this period little was known of 

this country. 
Birth of JEschylus at Eleusis,— accord- 
ing to Talfourd (? 525). 
527 Death of Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens. 
Hippias and Hipparchus, sons of Peisis- 
tratus, succeed to the government. 
526 Public library at Athens established by 
Hippias and Hipparchus. 
516 



526 Homer's poems collected. 
525 The Spartans and Samians at war. 
Simonides and Anacreon at Athens. 
Birth of iEschylus. — F. Clinton (?528). 
524 Miltiades archon at Athens. 
523 Tragedy introduced by Chcerilus. 
522 Greek colonies in Thracian Chersonese ; 

Sestos,Candia,i£gospotamos,founded. 
520 Cleomenes II. succeeds Anaxandrides 
king of Sparta. 
Melanippus, the poet, flourishes. 
519 Athens takes Plataea under its protection. 

The poets Parmenides and Cratinus born. 
518 Pindar born at Thebes.— Clint. (? 520). 
515 Miltiades succeeds Stesagoras, his bro- 
ther, in the Chersonese. 
Thrace tributary to Persia. 
514 Hipparchus assassinated by Harmodius 
and Aristogiton at the Panathenaea. 
Hippias governs at Athens alone. 
513 Naval supremacy of theLacedaemonians. 
511 Phrynichus, the tragedian, successful. 
510 Amyntas, of Macedon, submits to Persia. 
Expulsion of Hippias from Athens by 
the Alcmaeonidag, aided by Cleomenes, 
king of Sparta. 
Law of ostracism, by which powerful citi- 
zens might be banished for ten years. 
The ten tribes at Athens instituted. 
Athens a democracy. 
Telesilla, poetess of Argos, flourishes. 
509 Statues of the revolutionary leaders, 
Harmodius and Aristogiton, erected. 
508 Olymp. 68 ; victor, Ischomachus. 
The x°P°s avSpiov instituted. 
Isagoras archon at Athens. 
iEgina commands the sea. 
506 The tyranny of the Peisistratidae ends 

at Athens. 
505 War between Athens and Sparta. 

The aid of the Persians against Cleo- 
menes solicited by the Athenians. 
Cleander rules at Gela, in Sicily. 
504 Acestorides archon at Athens. 

Miltiades takes the isle of Lemnos. 
Parmenides, the philosopher of Elea, fl. 
The Athenians succour the Ionians. 
503 Laius, of Hermione, lyric poet, fl. 
502 Pindar, the lyric poet, fl. (F. C. 495.) 

The Eretrians masters of the sea. 
500 Myrus archon of Athens. 

Birth of Anaxagoras, the sculptor. 
Epicharmus, the comedian, flourishes. 
499 iEschylus, the poet, flourishes ; his first 

appearance this year. 
498 Camarina ceded to Hippocrates. 
497 The first Persian war against Greece. 
Alexander I. of Macedon, is compelled 

to join Persia against Greece. 
Commercial relations established be- 
tween Greece and Carthage. 
Aristagoras slain in Thrace. 
Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela. 



B.C. 496.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[B.C. 467. 



496 Olymp. 71 ; victor, Tisicrates. 
Thrace and Macedonia conquered. 
Pindar nourishes. — Clinton. 
495 Birth of Sophocles.— Clinton. 
494 Pythocritus archon at Athens. 

The Athenians and the confederates 
defeated by the Persians at Lade. 
493 Miltiades leaves the Chersonese and 

comes to Athens (515). 
492 Olymp. 72 ; victor, Tisicrates. 
Diognetus archon at Athens. 
Macedonia united to Persia. 
The fleet of Mardonius lost at Athos. 
491 Phoenippus archon at Athens. 

The demands of Persia for earth and 
water rejected by Athens and Sparta. 
War between Athens and JEgina. 
Deposition of Demaratus, king of 

Sparta ; Leotychides succeeds. 
Demaratus escapes to Persia. 
490 Second Persian invasion, under Datis & 
Artaphernes ; they take the iEgean 
Islands ; also Eretria in Euboea. 
Under the guidance of Hippias, the 

Persians land in Attica. 
Battle of Marathon ; the Persians de- 
feated by Miltiades. 
489 Athens mistress of the sea. 
488 Miltiades fined for his failure in Naxos ; 

not being able to pay, he is impris. 
487 Chiones, the Athenian comic poet, ex- 
hibits for the first time. 
485 The Gameroi expelled Syracuse. 

Gelon becomes master of Syracuse, and 
restores the Gameroi. 
484 Olymp. 74; victor, Astyllus. 

JEschylus obtains the prize in tragedy. 
Birth of Achaeus, tragic poet. 
Athens again at war with iEgina. 
For the creation of a navy, and other 
expenses of the war, the produce of 
the Laurium mines is appropriated. 
483 Ostracism of Aristides. 

Epicharmus comes to Syracuse. 
482 Union of the states against Persia. 
481 Themistocles archon at Athens. 

Fleet of 200 ships built at Athens, on 
the suggestion of Themistocles. 
480 The Persian invasion, under Xerxes. 
Recal of Aristides. 

Battle at the pass of Thermopylae; 

bravery and heroic death of Leonidas 

and his 300 companions. 
Bceotia and Attica ravaged by Xerxes. 
Athens taken and sack, by the Persians. 
Themistocles defeats the Persian navy 

at Artemisium and Salamis. 
Xerxes retreats across the Hellespont. 
His bridge of boats had been destroyed 

by a tempest (see Persia). 
Mardonius, the Persian general, with 

350,000 men, winters in Thrace. 
Pherecydes of Athens, hist, flourishes. 
517 
[H. G.l 



480 Birth of Gorgias at Leontium (459). 
Anaxagoras comes to Athens (450). 
Gelon of Syracuse defeats the Persians 

and Carthaginians. 
479 Mardonius breaks up his camp, marches 

again into Athens, which he burns, 

and then passes on to Bceotia. 
The Persians defeated at Mycale by 

sea and land. 
Mardonius is routed the same day by 

Aristides and Pausanias at Plataea. 
Aristodemus, called "the coward," 

falls in the battle of Platsea. 
The Persians speedily quit Greece. 
Macedon freed from its allegiance 'to 

Persia; Thrace also throws off the 

yoke. 

Birth of Antiphon, Athenian orator. 
478 Athens rebuilt, embellished, and forti- 
fied by Themistocles. 
Law for the admission of the poorer 

citizens to state offices (see 594). 
Siege and surrender of Sestos. 
This event brings the history of Hero- 
dotus to a close. 
Hiero I. succeeds Gelon in Syracuse. 
477 Adimantus archon at Athens. 

The Piraeus built; Athens in the as- 
cendant ; she is supreme in Greece till 
the close of the Peloponnesian war. 
Pindar, Bacchylides, Epicharmus, and 
iEschylus flourish. 
476 Olymp. 76 ; Phrynicus victor in tragedy. 
Simonides, eighty years old, gains the 

prize in the avSpuv x°p<?. 
Phaedon archon at Athens. 
Cimon, son of Miltiades (490), takes 
Scyros ; where the bones of Theseus 
are discovered. 
474 Naval defeat of the Tuscans by Hiero 

of Syracuse. 
472 Death of Theron of Agrigentum. 
471 Birth of Thucydides, the historian. 

Pausanias, convicted of aspiring to sove- 
reign rule, is starved to death at 
Sparta. 

Banishment of Themistocles from 

Athens ; he retires to Argos. 
Empirics instituted by Acron, of Agri- 
gentum, in Sicily. 
470 The common Greek treasury for sus- 
taining the war against Persia esta- 
blished at Delos. 
Phormis, the comic writer, flourishes. 
469 First public appearance of Pericles. 
Cimon overruns Thrace. 
Kingdom of the Odrysce in Thrace. 
468 Olymp. 78 ; Sophocles, victor. 
Theagenides archon at Athens. 
The Argives destroy Mycenae. 
Death of Aristides. 
Birth of Socrates, the philosopher, 
467 Birth of Andocides, the orator. 

2 M 



b. c. 467.] 



GEEEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[b.c. 435. 



467 Cimon, the Athenian general, occupies 
the Hellespontine Chersonese. 
Thrasyhulus succeeds HieroinSyracuse. 
466 Cimon defeats the Persians. 
Sophocles, tragic victor. 
Flight of Themistocles to Persia. 
Diagoras of Melos, philosopher, fl. 
Thrasyhulus expelled Syracuse. 
Syracuse a democracy. 
465 Revolt of Thasos. 

Athens greatly emhellished; the garden 
of the Academy planted, &c. 
464 The third Messenian war (? 465). 
Revolt of the Helots at Sparta. 
Cimon, with 4,000 Athenians, comes to 

the aid of the Spartans. 
Earthquake at Sparta ; 30,000 perish. 
Zeno, of Elea, philosopher, flourishes. 
463 Cimon hrings the revolted Thasians into 

subjection (465). 
462 Naval vict. over the Persians in Egypt. 
461 Cimon leads an army a second time to 
aid the Spartans, who decline re- 
ceiving the proffered aid. 
Cimon banished by ostracism. 
Ephialtes reduces the power of the 

Areopagus at Athens. 
The common treasury of the Greeks 

removed from Delos to Athens. 
Camarina in Sicily restored. 
Pericles, the Athenian democratic 
orator, rises to eminence. 
460 The Athenians succour the Egyptians. 
The poets Euripides and Ecphantides fl. 
Birth of the philosopher Democritus at 
Abdera, in Thrace. 
459 Assertion of supremacy over the other 
states by the Athenians. 
Gorgias of Leontium flourishes. 
458 Lysias the orator born. 
Bion archon at Athens. 
iEschylus, after the death of Hiero of 
Syracuse, comes to Athens. 
457 Battles between the Athenians and Co- 
rinthians in the Megarid. 
Battle of Tanagra ; the Spartans victo- 
rious over the Athenians. 
The long wall of Athens begun. 
iEschylus, charged with impiety, quits 
Athens for Syracuse. 
456 Battle of GEnophyta ; defeat of the Boeo- 
tians by the Athenians. 
Cimon recalled from exile. 
The long wall of Athens completed. 
455 Death of iEschylus. 

Euripides gains the tragic prize. 

Victories of Tolmides the Athenian. 

Surrender of Ithome, and 

End of the Messenian ivars. 

The Messenians are transplanted toNau- 

pactus by Tolmides. 
He sails round the Peloponnesus, inflict- 
ing much damage on the coast. 
518 



454 Expedition of Pericles against Sicyon, 
and campaign in Acarnania. 
Perdiccas II., king of Macedon, joins 

Sparta against Athens. 
Cratinus the comic writer flourishes. 
451 The Sicels united under Ducetius. 
450 Cimon negotiates for a truce of five 
years with the Peloponnesians. 
Anaxagoras withdraws from Athens. 
Archelaus teaches philosophy at Athens. 
449 Victory of the Athenians by sea ant 
land over the Persians at Cyprus. 
Peace with Persia by Cimon. 
Death of Cimon. 

Crates the comedian fl. at Athens. 
448 The first sacred war: — concerning the 
temple at Delphi ; Athens an ally of the 
Phocians; Sparta assists the Delphians. 
447 Battle of Coronea ; the Boeotians defeat 
the Athenians ; Tolmides the Athe- 
nian general slain. 
Achaeus and Sophocles exhibit tragedy. 
445 Euboea and Megara revolt from Athens. 
Pericles reduces them to obedience. 
The thirty years' truce between the 

Athenians and Lacedsemonians. 
Herodotus reads his history in the 
Athenian assembly. 
444 Pericles obtains sole power in Athens. 
Ostracism of Thucydides. 
Scrutiny of the Athenian citizens ; num- 
ber reduced to 14,240. 
Mercenary troops in Athens. 
Protagoras, the philosopher, flourishes. 
Xenophon born about this time. 
Phidias, the sculptor, fl. at Athens. 
443 Athenian colony to Thurium under 
Lampon ; the colonists are accom- 
panied by Protagoras and Lysias. 
Athenian citizens first paid for attending 
courts of justice. 
441 Euripides, tragic victor. 

The battering-ram, invented by Arte- 
mones, is first used by Pericles at the 
siege of Samos. 
440 Pericles victorious at Samos. 
Samos a dependency of Athens. 
Decline of the Areopagus. 
Aristophanes the comedian flourishes. 
Comedies prohibited at Athens. 
437 Colony of Agnon to Amphipolis. 

Repeal of the Athenian law against 
comedies (see 440). 
436 The Corinthians and Corcyrians at war 
for Epidamnus. 
The Propylsea at Athens commenced. 
Birth of Isocrates the orator. 
Cratinus, tragic victor. 
435 Naval victories of the Corcyrians, who 
take possession of Epidamnus. 
Anaxagoras's opinion of earthquakes, 
viz. :— that they are subterraneous 
clouds which burst forth with violence. 



b. c. 435.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[b. c. 412. 



435 Phrynicus, the comedian, first exhibits. 
Aristophanes, the "prince of ancient 
comedy," flourishes. 
434 Lysippus, comic writer, flourishes. 
433 The Corcyrians send an embassy to 
Athens ; an alliance formed. 
Treaty between Athens and Rhegium. 
Revolt of Potidaea from the Athenian 
confederacy. 
432 Prosecution of Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and 
Phidias at Athens ; Anaxagoras re- 
tires to Lampsacus, Aspasia is ac- 
quitted, and Phidias dies in prison. 
Naval battles off Corcyra ; the Corinth- 
ians defeated. 
Congress at Lacedaemon. 
431 Commencement of The Peloponnesian 
War, which lasts 27 years. 
Attempt of the Thebans upon Plataea. 
Attica invaded by the Peloponnesians. 
Allianc e btwn. Athenians & Thracians. 
Hellanicus the poet flourishes. 
Herodotus and Thucydides also fl. 
Birth of Dionysius the Elder. 
430 Plague at Athens. 

Attica again invaded. 
-±29 Capitulation of Potidaea to the Athenians. 
Phormio, the Athenian, in the Corin- 
thian Gulf. 
Eupolis and Phrynicus, poets, exhibit. 
Birth of Plato the philosopher. 
Pericles dies of the plague, having go- 
verned Athens 40 years. 
Sitalces king of Macedon. 
428 Attica invaded a third time. 
Revolt of Lesbos. 
Plato, the comic poet, exhibits. 
427 Attica is invaded a fourth time. 
The Spartans take Plataea. 
Sedition in Corcyra. 
Cleon rises into importance at Athens. 
Aristophanes exhibits, and gains a prize. 
Embassy of Gorgias to Athens ; assist- 
ance sent to the Leontines. 
426 Battle at Tanagra ; Athens victorious. 
Earthquake in Attica. 
Lustration of the island of Delos. 
A second pestilence in Athens. 
425 Fifth invasion of Attica by the Lace- 
daemonians. 
Pylus occupied by the Athenians under 

the command of Demosthenes. 
The Spartans blockade Pylus. 
Surrender of Sphacteria to Cleon. 
An earthquake in Euboea which con- 
verts the peninsula into an island. 
Eruption of Mount iEtna. 
424 Siege of Delium ; the Athenians de- 
feated by the Thebans. 
Athenians,under Nicias, occupyCy thera, 

and ravage the Laconian coast. 
Brasidas in Thrace ; fall of Amphipolis ; 
Thucydides defeated. 
519 



424 Seuthes succeeds Sitalces in Thrace. 
Alliance between Sparta and Macedon. 
Banishment of Thucydides. 
Solar eclipse noted at Athens. 
423 Truce for a year. 

Alcibiades begins his public career. 
The Thebans destroy Thespiae. 
Temple of Here, at Argos, burnt. 
Peace between Athens and Macedon. 
422 The war carried on in Thrace. 

Pall of Cleon and Brasidas at Amphi- 
polis ; the Athenians defeated. 
Athenian citizens number 20,000. 
Visit of Protagoras to Corinth. 
Death of Cratinus the poet, aged 97. 
421 A fifty-years' truce between the Athe- 
nians and Lacedaemonians. 
420 Olymp. 90 ; Hyperbius, victor. 

Alcibiades negotiates a treaty between 
the Athenians and Argives. 
419 Alcibiades in the Peloponnesus. 
418 The Athenians aid the Argives. 

Battle of Mantinea; the Argives and 

Mantineans defeated by Agis. 
Sparta and Argos form an alliance. 
417 The Athenians assist the Leontines in 

their war with Syracuse. 
416 Surrender of Melos to the Athenians ; 
their cruelty to the inhabitants. 
Agathon, tragic victor. 
415 Mutilation of the Hermae at Athens. 
The Athenian expedition to Sicily, under 

Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus. 
The Athenians take Catana. 
Recal of Alcibiades on a charge of 

impiety ; he flies to Sparta. 
The Spartans form a navy. 
Xenocles, tragic victor. 
Archippus, comic victor. 
Imprisonment of Andocides the phil. for 

the mutilation of the Hermae. 
Andocides maks his escape ; he gees 
first to Cyprus. 
414 The Decelean War begins. 

Second Athenian campaign in Sicily. 
The Spartans aid the Syracusans. 
Defeat of the Athenians. 
Eurymedon conveys supplies to the 

Athenians in Sicily. 
Ameipsias, comic victor. 
413 Attica invaded, and Decelea fortified by 
the Spartans. 
The Athenians send succours to Nicias, 

under command of Demosthenes. 
Defeat of the Athenians, and destruction 

of their fleet and army. 
Nicias and Demosthenes put to death. 
Hegemon introduces parody. 
Archelaus, king of Macedon. 
412 Alcibiades sent on a mission to Asia by 
the Lacedaemonians. 
Sparta forms a second alliance with 
Persia. 

2 M 2 



b.c. 412.] 



GREEK CHRONOLOGY. 



[b. o. 404. 



412 The Athenians deposit 1,000 talents for 
extreme emergencies. 
Antipho the philosopher flourishes. 
Diodes legislates at Syracuse. 
Syracuse a republic. 
411 Third alliance of the Spartans with the 
Persians. 

Revolution in Athens ; democracy abo- 
lished; council of 400, framed by 
Antipho, &c, is dissolved at the end 
of four months. 

Antipho put to death. 

Recal of Alcibiades by the Athenian 
army at Samos. 

Mindarus, commander of the Spartan 
fleet, defeated at Cynossema. 
410 Mindarus and Pharnabazes defeated by 
Alcibiades at Cyzicus ; Mindarus slain. 

Thucydides' history ends; Xenophon's 
history begins. 

Ephorus the historian flourishes. 
409 The Carthaginians take Himera and 

Selinus, in Sicily. 
408 Alcibiades takes Byzantium. 

Reign of Pausanias at Sparta. 

Plato, at Athens, hears Socrates. 
407 Return of Alcibiades to Athens. 

Lysander commands the Spartan fleet. 

Battle of Notium; Lysander defeats 
the Athenians under Antiochus. 

Alcibiades is accused of aspiring to 
sovereign power, and deposed; he 
quits Athens. 



406 The Spartans defeated by Conon, the 
Athenian, in a sea-fight off Arginusae ; 
Callicratidas is killed. 

The Athenian commanders, charged 
with neglecting to pick up the bodies 
of the slain, are condemned and put 
to death on their return. 

Violent death of Euripides near Pella, 
in Macedonia. 

Two xwyoi- appointed at Athens to 
defray the expenses of the exhibi- 
tions. 

The Carthaginians take Agrigentum. 

Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. 
405 Battle of iEgospotamos ; defeat of the 
Athenians by Lysander. 

Conon, with eight ships, the relics of his 
fleet, flees to Cyprus. 

Lysias condemned to banishment; re- 
tires to Megara. 

Lysander besieges Athens. 

Death of Sophocles. 
404 Athens surrenders to the Spartans. 

Lysander demolishes its walls. 

End of the Peloponnesian war. 

Rule of the thirty tyrants. 

Spartan supremacy till b. c. 371. 

Tragic death of Alcibiades. 

Phylae occupied by Thrasybulus. 

Expulsion of the " thirty tyrants," and 
establishment of the government of 
the « ten." 



CHRONOLOGY OF ASIA MINOR. 



B. C. 

1588 Atlas, the astronomer (? 1856, Greece). 

1580 The cymbal used at the feasts of Cybele. 

1546 Scamander founds Troy. 

1506 Hyagnis, a Phrygian, invents the flute. 

1500 Tmolus, king of Lydia. 

1490 Theoclymeus, successor of Tmolus, 

king of Lydia. 
1480 Dardania built by Dardanus, king of 

Troy (some place him at 1380). 
1460 Marsyas succeeds Theoclymeus, king of 

Lydia. 

1449 Erichthonius, king of Troy (he is placed 
by some at 1350). 
Gordius I., king of Phrygia, inventor 
of the Gordian knot. 
1400 Teucer, king of Troy, after whom the 
Teucrians were named. 
Minos, king of Crete (? 1256) 
1380 Dardanus, a Pelasgian, son of Electra, 
the dau. of Atlas, succeeds Teucer. 
Flourishing period of Troy, the Palla- 
dium, &c. 

1350 Erichthonius succeeds Dardanus, and 
is proverbial for his riches (? 1449). 

1320 Tros succeeds Erichthonius, k. of Troy. 
He founds the city of Troy (? 1430). 

520 



1310 Ilus succeeds Tros (? 1314). 

He founds Ilium. 
1300 Minos, of Crete (? 1400, 1256). 
1283 Pelops, a Lydian, removes to Argos. 
1280 Midas II. and Gordius H., kings of 

Phrygia. 
1260 Laomedon, king of Troy. 
1256 Minos, the Cretan legislator, extends 

his dominions by means of his naval 

superiority (? 1300). 
1240 Troy captured by the Argonauts. 

Hercules comes into Phrygia. 
1230 Agron, the first king of Lydia, of the 

Heracleidsean dynasty. 
1225 Atydas, king of Lydia. 
1220 Priam, king of Troy. 

Abduction of Helen by Paris. 
1200 Otreus, king of Phrygia, 
1193 Siege of Troy. 
1189 The Lydians masters of the sea. 
1183 Troy taken and sacked by the Greeks 
The Trojans and Heneti depart, sonu 

into Macedonia, and some into Italy. 
iEneas and his companions emigrate 

into Italy and settle there. 
1176 Salamis founded by Teucer. 



B. c. 1141.] 



CHRONOLOGY OF ASIA MINOR. 



[b. c. 617. 



1141 Ephesus burnt by the Amazons. 
1124 Commencement of the iEolic migra- 
tions ; the first migration under Pen- 
tiums, son of Orestes. 
1100 The iEolians colonize the coast from 

Cyzicus to the Hermus. 
1044 The Ionians under ISeleus come into 
Asia Minor, where, with the assist- 
ance of some Thebans, and a host of 
other Greeks, they found Phoceea and 
Ephesus, and ten other cities on the 
southern coast of Lydia and the 
northern coast of Caria. 
1044 Meles, king of Lydia (1050, Pococke). 
1015 Smyrna founded. 

Minos,— according to some (? 1256). 
986 The Ionians build Samos. 
971 Birth of Homer. 
952 Homer nourishes among the Ionians. 
Litierses, an effeminate k. of Phrygia. 
Several colonies of Dorians settle in the 
islands of Cos and Rhodes, and on 
the southern coast of Caria. They 
had six cities— one in Cos, three in 
Rhodes, and two in Caria. They 
established one sanctuary for all, the 
temple of Apollo Triopius, where their 
festivals were celebrated. 
950 Homer flourishes. — Bernhardy. 
916 First laws on navigation at Rhodes. 
907 Homeric period begins, — according to 

the Parian Chronicle. 
891 Maritime supremacy of the Phrygians. 
865 The Cyprian dominion of the sea ; 

decline of the Phrygian naval power. 
831 The maritime supremacy of the Cyprians 

passes to the Phoenicians. 
800 Midas in., king of Phrygia. 

? Halicarnassus being excluded from the 
Ionian confederacy is annexed to the 
Carian kingdom. 
797 Ardys I,, king of Lydia. 
782 Lydia invaded by the Cimmerians in 

the reign of Candaules. 
775 Arctinus, the poet of Miletus, flourishes. 
The Phocseans found the colony of 
Massilia in Gaul. 
? Candaules, the last k. of the Heraclidse, 
in Lydia, purchases from Bularchus 
a picture of the battle of Magnetes. 
756 The Milesians found Cyzicus in the 
Propontis. 

753 Antimachos, of Teos, and Asias, of 

Samos, poets, flourish. 
750 Flourishing condition of Miletus, and its 

numerous colonies in the Palus Mae- 

otis, Black Sea, and Sea of Marmora. 
744 Pharnaces founds the kingdom of Cap- 

padocia. 

736 Callinus, the poet, nourishes (? 710). 
735 Candaules, of Lydia, — according to 

some (see 782, 775). 
730 Leontium, in Achaia, founded. 
521 



730 Phocaea flourishes ; its inhabitants carry 

on an extensive western trade. 
716 Gyges, the first of the Mermnadse, 
murders Candaules, king of Lydia, 
and reigns in his stead. 
The Heraclidse flee to Greece, 
Gyges attacks Miletus and Smyrna. 
715 The Milesians found Abydos. 

Byzantium (Constantinople), founded 
by a colony of Athenians. 
712 Astacus, in Bithynia, founded by a 

colony of Megarians. 
710 Callinus, of Ephesus, flourishes, 
Gyges, of Lydia, reduces Colophon. 
He sends presents and offerings to the 

temple of Delphi. 
Midas IV., of Phrygia, also sends 
offerings to the same temple. 
700 Podalinus (a Greek), king of Caria. 
The Ionians in Miletus, celebrated for 
their fleet of 100 ships. 
693 Simonides, of Amorgus, fl. (? 556). 
690 Phaselis, in Pamphylia, founded. 

Glaucus, of Chios, flourishes. — Bern- 
hardy (? 677). 
He invents the art of soldering. 
Ardys II. succeeds Gyges. 
He takes Priene. 
677 Glaucus, of Chios, fl.— F. Clinton (? 690.) 
675 Cyzicus, in the Propontis, planted by 

the Megarians. 
674 Arcias, from Megara, rebuilds Chal- 

cedon, in Bithynia. 
665 Thaletas, lyric poet, of Crete, flourishes. 
659 Epimenides born at Crete. — Suidas. 
657 Lesches, of Mitylene, flourishes. 
654 The Phocseans, under Timesias, found 
Lampsacus. 
Borysthenes, in Pontus, founded, 
651 Pittacus, of Mitylene, born. — Suidas, 
650 Anacreon, the poet, flourishes. — Tal- 

fourd (? 558.) 
646 Pisander, poet of Camira, flourishes. 
640 Midas V., king of Phrygia. 
639 Thales, the Milesian, born. 

The globular form of the earth was 
first suggested by Thales. 
635 Sardis taken by the Cimmerians. 
631 Cyrene, in Libya, founded by Battus. 
629 Sadyattes succeeds Ardys, of Lydia. 
Cous and Critines (Milesians) found 
Sinope, in Paphlagonia. 
628 Mimnermus, of Colophon, flourishes. 
Pamillus, of Megara Hyblaea, plants 
Selinus, in Cilicia. 
626 Aristoxenus, of Selinus, flourishes (662 
Bernhardy). 
Prusias fnded.,— according to Eusebius . 
624 Lydia invaded by the Scythians. 
620 Birth of JEsop, the fabulist. 
617 Alyattes, king of Lydia, attacks the 
Cimmerians, and expels them from 
Asia Minor ; he takes Smyrna. 



B. G. 617.] 



CHRONOLOGY OF ASIA MINOR. 



[b. c. 546. 



617 War between Lydia and Miletus. 

612 Peace, — by Thrasybulus and Alyattes. 
The tyranny of Melanchrus at Mitylene 
overthrown by Pittacus. 

610 Sappho, of Mitylene, poetess, flourishes. 

609 Apollonia, on the Euxine, founded by 
a colony of Milesians. 

603 Eclipse of Thales.— Hales (? 601); it se- 
parated the Lydians & Medes in battle. 
Alcaeus, of Mitylene, poet, flourishes. 

600 The Phocaeans, under Protus, found 
Massilia in Gaul. 

597 ? Thales, of Miletus, foretels an eclipse 
of the sun (? 603, compare 578). 

595 Croesus, king of Lydia, born. 

592 Odessus, on the Euxine, planted by 
a colony of Milesians. 

589 Pittacus begins to reign at Mitylene. 
Alcaeus, the poet, and opponent of Pit- 
tacus, banished. 

579 Pittacus abdicates the throne of Mity- 
lene. 

578 Thales, the philosopher, fl. — Bernhardy. 
576 The Phocaeans masters of the sea. 
569 The Ionians fall under the Persian yoke, 
but retain their own form of govrnt. 



569 Death of Pittacus, of Mitylene. 
566 Eugamon, of Cyrene, flourished. 
564 Death of iEsop. — Eusebius. 
563 Amisus, in Pontus, fndd. by Phocaeans. 
562 Anaximander, the philosopher, of Mile- 
tus, invents sun-dials. 
Croesus, king of Lydia (? 560). 
560 Accession of Croesus, king of Lydia. 
He conquers Bithynia. 
Cleobulus, of Rhodes, one of the sages. 
559 Heraclea, on the Euxine, founded by 
the Phocaeans. 
Asia Minor subjected to Croesus. 
558 Anacreon, of Teos, fl. — Bernhardy. 
556 Birth of the poet Simonides at Cos. 
552 Dipoenus and Scyllus, statuaries, of 
Crete, flourish. 
Anaximenes, of Miletus, philosopher, fl. 
543 Bias, of Priene, historian, flourishes. 
Rhcecus, of Samos, discovers the mode 

of casting metals. 
Hipponax, the Iambic poet, flourishes. 
546 Cyrus takes Sardis ; deposition of 
Croesus, and end of the Mermnadaean 
dynasty, and of the kingdom of Lydia. 
Lydia becomes a Persian Province. 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 



546 Cyrus besieges and takes Sardis. 

He treats Croesus with great kindness. 
Lydia and Asia Minor annexed. 
Syria and Arabia overrun by Cyrus. 
540 Nabonadius (Labynetus) besieged in 
Babylon by Cyrus. 
Simoniades and Hipponax, poets, fl. 
Epicharmus, the poet, born at Cos. 
539 Babylon taken by stratagem. 

Phoenicia conquered and annexed. 
Cyrus restores peace to his dominions. 
He repays the war taxes by the spoils 
obtained in his successful campaigns. 
The religion of Zoroaster introduced. 
According to Herodotus, Cyrus, having 
extended his empire from India to the 
Mediterranean Sea, was seized with a 
desire to subdue the Massagetae. 
Whereupon he invaded their terri- 
tory; and though at first his arms 
were successful, yet his army was 
soon routed and himself slain. Xeno- 
phon, however, states that he died in 
peace (529). 
539 Emigration of the Phocaeans into Gaul. 
538 Xenophanes, of Colophon, poet, fl. 
537 Daniel in the lion's den. 
532 Polycrates' usurpation at Samos. 

Pythagoras, the historian, flourishes. 
531 Anacreon a guest in the court of Poly- 
crates, tyrant of Samos. 
529 The maritime supremacy of Samos. 
522 



B. C. 

529 Death of Cyrus, in peace, according to 

Xenophon (see 539). 
Cambyses, or Lohorasp, the eldest son 

of Cyrus, succeeds. 
Smerdis, or Tanaoxares, the king's 

younger brother, is made satrap or 

governor of Bactria. 
525 Egypt and other parts of Africa con- 
quered by Cambyses. 
The western provinces subdued by the 

general of Cambyses, Gudarz or Ba- 

ham. 

Disastrous expedition of Cambyses 
against Ammonium and Meroe". 

He is jealous of his brother Smerdis, 
and sends Preaxpes to assassinate him. 

Cambyses receives a mortal wound, by 
accident, when about to proceed 
against Smerdis Magus. 
522 Smerdis, the magian, usurps the sove- 
reignty for seven months, when he is 
slain by a conspiracy of seven nobles. 

Execution of Polycrates, tyrant of Sa- 
mos, by order of Oroetes of Sardis. 
521 Darius I., Hystaspes or Gushtap. 

Darius was one of the seven conspira- 
tors, and descended in the royal line. 

The empire is divided into twenty sa- 
trapies, and a sj stematic mode of tax- 
ation is introduced. 

Darius increases his army ; fortifies his 
kngdm ; has darks (of gold) coined,&c. 



B.C. 521.] 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 



[b.c. 460. 



521 Darius sends an army under Otanes 
against Samos, which he subdues. 
Sjdoson, brother of Polycrates, restored. 
Greek refugees and favourites at the 
court occasion much dissatisfaction. 
520 Hecataeus and Dionysius, historians, fl. 
518 Babylon revolts ; it is besieged. 
517 Darius takes Babylon and destroys it. 
508 Expedition against the Scythians, fails. 
Darius's cruelty to the sons of Oebazus. 
Macedon and Thrace tributary to Persia. 
Pharaoh Necho's unfinished canal com- 
pleted (see 610, Egypt). 
Scylax, of Caria, sets out on a voyage of 
discovery ; he sails down the Indus 
and returns by the Red Sea. 
508 Expedition into India ; by which all the 
country north of the Indus is subdued. 
Aryandes, prefect of Egypt, imitates 
the darics issued by the king; for 
which Darius puts him to death. 
Religious reforms under Zerdusht, or 
Zoroaster, the younger. 
504 Charon, of Lampsacus, historian, fl. 
Histaeus incites the Ionians to revolt. 
The Archeanactidse rule in Bosporus. 
502 Heracleitus, philosopher of Ephesus, fl. 
The doctrine of celestial motions taught 
by Pythagoras about this time. 
501 The Naxian war : siege of Naxos and 
defeat of the Persians. 
Hecatseus gives counsel to the Ionians. 
Revolt of Anaxagoras. 
500 He solicits aid from Sparta. 
499 Rebellion of the Ionians ; they besiege 
Sardis, which is accidentally burnt. 
The Athenians having assisted the 

Ionians, leads to the Persian 
War against Greece. 

The Persian court famed for its magni- 
ficence; 15,000 courtiers sit down at 
the king's table ; whole provinces 
converted into royal parks ; splendid 
palaces, &c. 
496 Birth of Hellanicus of Mitylene. 
494 Naval victory over the Greeks at Lade. 
Miletus falls into the hands of the Per- 
sians. 

493 Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos reduced by 

the Persians. 
492 Expedition under Mardonius against 

Greece ; defeated by sea and land. 
490 Datis and Artaphernes lead a second ex- 
pedition into Greece ; unfortunate. 
Darius makes preparations for another 
invasion of Greece and Egypt. 
489 Unsuccessful attempt of Miltiades, the 
Athenian, upon Naxos. 
Panyasis, the poet, flourishes. 
487 Artabazes king of Pontus, Asia Minor. 
486 Irruption of Scythians into Bactria ; the 
Archimagus slain. 
Darius assumes the office of Archimagus. 
523 



486 Revolt of Egypt from the Persian yoke. 
485 Death of Darius, who appoints 

Xerxes, his eldest son, to succeed him. 
Naval dominion of the iEginetae. 
484 Xerxes reduces Egypt to his sway. 

Birth of Herodotus at Halicarnassus. 
483 Xerxes commences preparations for in- 
vading Greece. 
482 Bacchylides, the poet, born at Cos. 
480 Xerxes' expedition against Greece. 

Herodotus states that his army and 
camp followers amounted to 5,000,000 
men, and that his object was to reduce 
the whole earth under his sway. 
Xerxes departs from Susa at the time of 

a half eclipse of the sun. 
At Celeenag Xerxes and his army are 

entertained by Pythias, a Lydian. 
Cruelty of Xerxes in putting Pythias' s 

eldest son to death. 
Xerxes has a bridge of boats laid across 
the Hellespont; his army (1,700,000 
foot and 80,000 horse) are seven days 
and seven nights in crossing it. 
Xerxes' fleet, of 1207 ships, saiL to 

Mount Athos. 
Defeat of the Persians in Greece. 
Xerxes recrosses the Hellespont from 

Greece, and comes to Sardis. 
The family of Archeanactes from Mity- 
lene settle in Bosporus. 
Birth of Euripides at Salamis. 
479 Invasion of Greece unsuccessful ; Mar- 
donius slain at Plataea.. 
Chcerilus, of Samos, poet, born. 
477 Simonides, of Cos, invents a system of 

mnemonics ; he obtains a prize. 
471 Timocreon, of Rhodes, lyric poet, fl. 
466 Battles of the Eurymedon ; Cimon de- 
feats the Persians by sea and land. 
The Hellespontine Chersonese taken by 

Cimon, the Athenian. 
Xerxes spreads devastation in his home- 
ward route. His cruelties render 
him detestable. 
The independence of Ionia restored. 
Simonides, the poet, dies, aged 90. 
Naxos revolts ; it is soon subdued. 
465 Assassination of Xerxes by Artabanus 
and the eunuch Spamitres. 
Murder of Darius, Xerxes' eldest son. 
Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus) ascends 

the Persian throne. 
Themistocles arrives in Persia, and is 

protected by Artaxerxes. 
The conspirator Artabanus put to death. 
Civil war between Artaxerxes and his 
brother Hystaspes of Bactria. 
463 Xanthos, of Lydia, the historian, fl. 
462 Artaxerxes' celebrated feast at Susa. 

Deposition of Vashti, his queen. 
460 Revolt of Inarus, and commencement 
of war with the revolted Egyptians. 



b. c. 460.] 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERSIAN EJMPIRE. 



[B. C. 404. 



460 Defeat of the Persians under Achee- 

menes by sea and land. 
Birth of Aristophanes, at Rhodes. 
Birth of Hippocrates, "the father of 

medicine," at Cos. 
459 Megabyzus, with an army of 30,000, 

is sent against the Egytians. 
458 Esther chosen queen by Artaxerxes. 
Commission granted toEzra to go to Jeru- 
salem, with power to correct abuses. 
457 Panyasis put to death by Lygdamus. 
455 Egypt brought under subjection ; 

Amyrtseus, however, maintains his 

independence in the marshes. 
451 Ion, of Chios, exhibits tragedy. 
450 Cimon, the Athenian, defeats Artabazus, 

the Persian admiral, and takes from 

him one hundred ships. 
449 Defeat of Megabyzus at Salamis. 

Peace with Greece; acknowledgment 

of the independence of the Asiatic 

Greeks by Persia. 
447 Rebellion of Megabyzus, Syrian satrap, 

aided by the queen Amytes and the 

dowager-queen Amestris. 
Artaxerxes yields to Megabyzus all his 

demands. 

445 Nehemiah's commission to rebuild the 

walls of Jerusalem. 
Melissus, of Samos, philosopher, fl. 
440 Siege and capture of Samos by Pericles ; 

Melissus defended it against him. 
438 Spartacus drives the Archeanactidae 

from Bosporus, and reigns. 
431 Hippocrates, the physician, nourishes. 
428 Siege of Mitylene by the Athenians. 



428 Death of Anaxagoras at Lampsacus. 
427 Mitylene captured ; Lesbos restored. 
425 Xerxes II. succeeds Longimanus. 

Sogdianus, the king's natural brother, 
assassinates Xerxes, after a few 
months' reign. 
Sogdianus is himself assassinated by 
another natural brother. 
424 Darius II. (Nothus or "bastard"). 
He is represented as a weak-minded 
prince, and under the influence of his 
wife Parysatis and her eunuchs. 
422 Arsites' revolt, aided by the son of 
Megabyzus, quelled. 
Arsites smothered in ashes. 
414 Revolt of Pisuthnes, satrap of Lydia. 
The Egyptians regain their inde- 
pendence. 

412 Lesbos, Chios, and Eurythrse, make 

preparations for revolt. 
411 League with Sparta against Athens. 
Alcibiades visits Tissaphernes. 
Death of Hellanicus at Perperene. 
409 Thrasyllus invades Lydia. 
408 Athenian cruelty at Miletus. 
Lycia invaded by the Athenians. 
The independence of Rhodes acknow- 
ledged by Persia. 
407 Cyrus, governor of Asia Minor, assists 

the Spartans against Athens. 
405 Artaxerxes II. (styled "Mnemon" on 
account of his great memory). 
Conspiracy, detection, and pardon of 

Cyrus. 
Democritus visits Persia. 
404 Birth of Antiphanes, the comic poet. 



INDEX. 



Absorption and reproduction, their doctrinal 

source, 37 
Acarnanian territory, 127 
Acarnanians, victory of, 332 
Achaia, its geography, 129 
Achilles, name of, 36 
, prowess, and quarrel of, 114, 115 

■ ■ slain by Paris, 117 
Acteeon, myth of, 94, 95 
Adrastus saved by his horse Areion, 102 
iEgisthus slain by Orestes, 93 
iEolus, sons and daughters of, 87 
jEschylus' tale of the war of Thebes, 100-102 
Agamemnon, his wealth and disasters, 93 
— heads the Greeks against Troy, 114 

sacrifices his daughter, 114 

quarrels with Achilles, 114 

returns to Argos, 93 

, his murder, 93 

Agencies, monstrous, teachers of the arts, 111 
Ages of the Indian epic, 7 6 
Agoracritus, sculptor, 483 
Aigospotamos, battle of, 354 
Ajax, valour of, 115 

slays himself, 117 

Alcamenes, the sculptor, 483 
Alcander's rashness, how punished, 148 
Alcibiades, family and character, 292 
, friendship of Socrates for, 293 
, marriage of, 294 

, his success at the Olympian games, 295 

commences his career as a statesman, 295 

intrigues against Nicias, 296 

carries war into the Peloponnesus, 297 

induces the second revolution of Argos, 

298 

, his insolence and excesses, 298 

plans the Sicilian campaign, 299 

— — is charged with irreligion, 299 

departs from Athens without trial, 300 

is recalled, 301 

repairs to Sparta, 302 

assumes the Spartan manners, 302 

makes enemies, 302 

takes refuge with Tissaphernes, 302 

intrigues for his return to Athens, 303 

is led by Thrasybulus to Samos, 304 

, recal of, 305 

, his exploits and victories, 305 



Alcibiades, imprisonment and escape of, 306 

-, second naval victory of, 306 

, his victory at Chalcedon, 306 

, his successes at Selymbria, 307 

takes Byzantium, 307 

returns to Athens, 308 

conducts the Eleusinian procession, 309 

, causes of his second exile, 309 

is compelled to leave the fleet, 310 

is superseded and goes into Thrace, 310 

, attempts to serve the Athenians, 310 

is suspected by the Spartans, 311 

takes refuge in Persia, 311 

, his assassination, 311 

,his character, 312, 313 

Alcmseonidae, conspiracy of, 199, 201 

Alexander, a Macedonian king, reveals the 
Persian plans to Aristides, 260 

Alexandrine compositions, not necessarily for- 
geries, 41 

Alpheus river, course of, 130 

Ambrosia and Amritah, 37 

Amompharetus refuses to obey orders, 261 

Amphiaraus saved by Zeus, 102 

Amphictyonic Council, 191 

consult the oracle of Delphi, 192 

, their decree on the Persian war, 244 

Amusements, Athenian, 186 

, provided for company, 453 

of Athens, not enjoyed by females, 423 

Amytus, outrage on, 293 

Anacharsis, his friendship with Solon, 183 

Anaxagoras, instructor of Pericles, 27 6 

is expelled Athens, 284 

is starved to death, 291 

, theology of, 391, 394 

Anchises and Aphrodite, 63 

Androclus, founder of Ephesus, 168 

, his descendants retain the priesthood, 168 

Andromeda rescued by Perseus, 81 

Anthermus, sculptor, 476 

Antigone, noble action of, 102 

Antiochus defeated, 310 

Aphrodite, legend of, 63 

, rises from the foam of the sea, 64 

worship of, 64 

— sides with the Trojans, 64 

Apollo, legend of, 52 

at Telphusa, 53 



526 



INDEX. 



Apollo at Parnassus, 53 

slays the serpent, 54 

■ destroys the fountain of Telphusa, 54 

metamorphosed into a dolphin, 54 

is followed by the crew of a vessel as his 

priests, 55 
Apollodorus, painter, 495 
Apennine of Laconia, 132 
Arcadia, 129 

— '— , pastures of ; its characteristics, 130 

, description by a German traveller, 130 

, rugged habits of, 130 

Arcadian claims to antiquity, 131 
Archidamus invests Plataea, 290 
Architecture, domestic, 449 
Archons, government of, 166 
— — , office elective, 166 

, nine appointed, 170 

, right of electing archons, 170 

, rites and duties of, 185 

Areopagus, court of, 184 
Ares, legend of, 67 

, his fight with Diomede, 68 

Arginusae, battle of, 352 

Argive host before Thebes, 100 

Argives defeated, their governmt. changed, 297 

Argive champions, 155 

league, 339 

Argo, narrow escape of, 104 

, myth of ; Grote's reflections on, 107 

Argonauts, myth of, 103 

arrive at Colchis, 105 

repulsed by Talos, 106 

, germ of the legend of, 108 

Argos, power of, declines, 155 

■ and Sparta, war between, 340 

, its revolutions, 297, 298 

Arimaspi and griffins, fight of, 108 
Aristagoras burns Sardis, 203 

revolts from Persia, 208 

• at the Spartan court, 209 

applies to Athens, 209 

convokes the revolted chiefs, 211 

Aristides educated with Themistocles, 228 

, his early virtue, 229 

in joint command at Marathon, 229 

> ,his inflexible justice, 230 

, trial by ostracism, 230 

, banishment, and recal, 231, 233 

in command of the Athenian fleet, 244 

' receives offers of submission from the 

inferior states, 245 
' at the summit of popularity, 246 

, his plans of finance, 246 

! , his generosity, 247 

, his death, 247, 321 

Aristogiton's conspiracy, 198 
punishment, 199 



Aristomenes defies Sparta, 159 

escapes from the Ceadas, 159 

destroys a Corinthian force, 159 

dies at Rhodes, 160 

Aristophanes the satirist, 397, 401 
Aristotle, his logic and politics, 388 
Armourer, the Homeric, 367 
Artabazus effects his retreat, 262 
Artaphernes, viceroy of W. Asia Minor, 207 

defeats the Ionians, 210 

, military combinations of, 211 

Artaxerxes receives Themistocles at court, 248 

plans an expedition against Greece, 249 

Artemis, legend of, 71 

of India, 71 

Hyperborean worship of, 72 

Indo-epic, illustrative of, 72 

, jealousy of, 73 

Arts taught by monstrous agency, 111 

, infancy of, 468 

in Assyria, 468 

in Egypt, 469 

among the Jews, 470 

Asopus River, battle near, 261 
Aspasia accused, 284 

and Pericles, patrons of literature, 389 

Ate hurled from Olympus, 82 

Astyochus discloses to Alcibiades the treachery 

of Phrynicus, 303 
Athene, legend of, 66 

unaffected by Aphrodite, 66 

sides with the Greeks, 66 

assists Zeus and slays Pallas, 67 

worshipped by the potters of Athens, 67 

, statue of, in the Parthenon, 479 

Athenian relics, 5. 

, confederacy, 339 

distresses in Sicily, and retreat, 348 

power subverted, 356 

national character, brought out by the 

plague, 402 

sacerdo-agricultural claims, 52 

fragments of laws, 186 

education, 383-403 

female society, 414-428 

female education, 417 

female seclusion, 417 

marriages, 419-421 

housewifery, 421 

female employments, 422 

gentleman's country life, 422 

■- amusements, 423, 432 

Hetaerae, 424, 425 

wives, daughters, and widows, 426 

female extravagance, 427 

tradesmen and trade, 428, 432 

toilette, 428 

jurisprudence, 429 



INDEX. 



527 



Athenian residents and natives, 431 

donations to the state, 433 

society, general state of, 434 

dicasts and informers, 435 

dicasts denounced by comic writers and 

by Plutarch, 436 

state trials, 437 

state punishments, 438 

bribery and corruption of law courts, 438 

festive habits, 450 

Athens, general appearance of, 126 

, kings of, after Theseus, 164 

, early maritime power of, 167 

rebuilt and fortified, 237, 319 

interferes in the war against Samos, 281 

, the other states hostile to, 283 

, internal state of, during the administra- 
tion of Pericles, 284 

, resources of, 287 

, plague at, 288 

, revolution at, 304 

, government of the four hundred, 304 

, its distressed condition, 350 

revolt of her allies, 350 

, miserable condition of, 355 

surrenders to Lysander, 356 

Athos, Mount, cut through, 222 

Atreus, his revenge, 93 

Attic ancestry, 108 

■ •, population, increase of, 166 

Attica, its population, not migratory, 384 

, geography of, 125 

, geologic form, 125 

, imports and exports, 134 

, invasion of, 287 

Aulis, rendezvous of the confederate force, 1 14 

Bacchiads overthrown by Cypselus, 161 
Banquet of rich Athenians, 448 

, philosophic, 455 

Bards, Homeric, 372 
Barrows, places of interment, 264 
Barthelemy, the Abbe', 358 
Bartholdy's description of Arcadia, 130 
Bekker, his " Charicles," 359 
Bellerophon, myth of, 87 

accused by Anteia, 88 

■ slays the Amazons and Chimsera, 88 

marries the daughter of Iobates, 89 

Betrothment, its form, political, 420 
Bill of fare, Greek, 450, 451 
Birds, flight of, 380 
Boeotia, ethical tone of, 75 

, geography of, 123 

Books, scarcity of, in antiquity, 389 
Brahminical rites, 71 

Brasidas improves the Spartan affairs, 337 
, his operations in Thrace, 337 



Brasidas, death and character of, 338 
Brazen Age, 7 5 

Bribery of Athenian juries, 438, 442 
Bupalus, sculptor, 476 
Burial, customs of, 457 
Byzantium taken, 307 

Cadmus, founder of Thebes, 93 

slays the dragon, 93 

marries Harmonia, 94 

, daughters of, 94 

wafted to the Elysian fields, 95 

Calaureia, sacrifices to Poseidon at, 61 

Calidasa, the Indian Shakspeare, 91 

Callimachus, polemarch, 205 

Callixenus, his execrable proposal, 353 

Capaneus struck down by a thunderbolt, 102 

Carians, defeat of, at the "White Pillars," 210 

Castalia, spring of, 124 

Cecrops divides Attica into 12 districts, 109 

Centaur and Cupid, 35 

Centaurs and Lapithse, 110 

Cercopes, tale of, 85 

Chalcedon, victory at, 306 

Charilaus, birth of, 140 

Chariots, Homeric, 367 

Cheiron the Thessalian Centaur, 35 

Children, Athenian, education of, 187 

, Spartan, exposed, 149 

■ ■, their education and training, 149-151 

Chrysus besieges Cirrha, 192 
Cimon, history of, 268 

at the victory of Salamis, 269 

an antagonist of Themistocles, 269 

gradually rises to supreme power, 269 

commands the fleet, 270 

takes Scyros, 270 

conquers the Persians off Pamphylia, 270 

commences the long walls, &c, 270 

, his riches, magnificence, and taste for 

the fine arts, 271, 390 

, his conquest of Thasos, 271 

is sent to assist Sparta, 272 

, his banishment and reappearance at 

Tanagra, 273 

returns to Athens, 274 

completes the long walls, 274 

, last expedition to Cyprus, 274 

, his death, 275 

, disturbances on his death, 279 

Cirrha, gradual importance of, 192 

, outrages of the people of, 192 

is taken and destroyed, 192 

• , its spoils help to found the Pythian 

games, 192 
Citadel of Corinth, 129 
Citium besieged, 326 
Civilization, progress of, 390 



528 



INDEX. 



Cleomenes besieges Athens, 200 

sends a herald to Athens, 201 

, defeat of, 202 

Cleon, character of, 333 

satirised by Aristophanes, 338 

commands in Thrace, 338 

defeated and slain, 338 

Coasts of Greece, extensive, 122 
Codrus, legend of, historicised, 164 

, oracle respecting him, 166 

, history of his family, 166 

sacrifices his life, 166 

Comedy, old, political, 415 

,new, domestic, 415 

Comic writers, productions of, 415 

, their sketches of social life, 416 

Community of Spartan life, 150 
Conon, naval commander, 351 

, relief of, 352 

, his flight, 354 

Convivial meetings, Homeric, 372 
■ habits of the Athenians, 448 
Copais Lake, 124 

Corcyra, dreadful contentions in, 334 
— — , slaughter at, 335 

, termination of the contest, 336 
Corcyrians, treaty with, 283 

war with the Corinthians, 283 

Corinth, games at, 16 

— , Athenian importance at, 16 

— — — , geography of, 127 

, military and commercial character, 128 

, Isthmus of, 128 

, efforts to cut through, 128 

, citadel of, &c, 129 

— — , eminent in the fine arts, 129 

, Cypselus, king of, 161 

, war with, 282 

at war with Athens, 324 

at war with Corcyra, 327 

, wealth of, 384 

Cosmogonies, Indian and Greek, 27 

Cosmogony of Orpheus, 37 

Country life of an Athenian gentleman, 422 

Crissa, position of, 191 

Critias, sculptor, 484 

Cronos and the Titans liberated, 28 

Cronos and Rhea, progeny of, 28, 37 

Croton, great reform at, 174 

Croton and Sybaris, wars of, 175 

Cryptia, institution of, 153 

Culinary skill, Athenian, 452 

Cylon of Croton, 176 

is besieged in the citadel of Athens, 180 

Cypselus overthrows the Bacchiads, 161 

preserved from death, 161 

Cyrus, Spartan negotiation with, 351 
Cyzicus, king of the Doliones, 104 



Dasdalus, sculptor, 473, 474 
Daemons, 74 

, benevolence and office of, 76 

Daityas, 33, 35 

Damon, a teacher of politics, 276 
Danae and Perseus, legend of, 80 

, their danger and deliverance, 81 

Danaides slay their husbands, 79 
Danaus arrives in Greece, 79 

, king of Argos, 80 

Danavas, or Danous, 34 
Dancing girls, 454 

Darius engages in a war with Greece, 213 

prepares to renew the war, 216 

, his death, 216 

Datis and Artaph ernes succeed Mardonius in 
the Persian command, 215 

Dead, respect paid to the, 455 

Deianeira sends to Heracles the sacrificial 
robe, 82 (see Heracles) 

Deities, Homeric, 375, 377 

Delium, battle of, 337 

Delos, Ionic assembly at, 53 

, grand festivals of, B.C. 660-560, 169 

Delphi, position of, 11 

, discovery of its prophetic power, 13 

Delphic oracle, its influence, decline, and aboli- 
tion, 13 (see also 124) 

Deluge which destroyed the Brazen race, 86 

Demeter, abduction of her daughter, 47 

repairs to Helios, 47 

at Eleusis, 48 

nurses Demophoon, 48 

reveals herself, 49 

appoints her sacred rites, 50 

Democratic feeling in Greece, 161 

Demophoon establishes the Ephetae, 165 

Demosthenes, battles of, 335 

sails to Sicily with succours, 345 

, surrender of, 349 

Demosthenes on the morals of Athens, 424 

Deucalion, myth of ; his importance, 86 

, mankind restored by him and Pyrrha, 86 

, deluge of, commemorated at Athens, 86 

Dicast of Aristophanes, 442, 443 

Diolcos of Corinth, 128 

Dionysius, the Phocsean, valour of, 212 

Dionysus, legend of, 44 

derided by the helmsman, 44 

is carried out to sea, 45 

assumes the form of a lion, 45 

destroys the crew of the vessel, 45 

, Greek etymology of his name, 46 

Dipsenus, sculptor, 475 

Diupeti of India, 30 

, heaven of Diupeti and Zeus, 31 

-, celestial singers of, 39 

Divination of various kinds, 379 



INDEX. 



529 



Divination, belief in, 381 

Divinities, Greek, personal agencies, 10 

Doctrinal influx into Greece, 39 

, double source of it, 39 

— , doctrine preserved in legend, 50 
Domestic ornaments, Homeric, 369 

manners of the Greeks, 414 

Dorians at war with the Phocians, 325 
Doris, its geography, 126 

, the residence of the Heracleidse, 126 

Draco, obscurity in his history, 171 

, severity of his laws, 171 

, his repulsive character, 172 

, his death, 172 

Dramatic pleasures, 463 
Dreams, 380 

Dress of Homeric age, 369 

Ecclesiasts and Dicasts, state donations to, 433 
Education, Athenian, 385 

, domestic and scholastic, 386 

, Spartan, 404-406 

Egg, the mundane, 37 

Egypt in the time of Pythagoras, 173 

Egyptian origin of the Homeric religion, 375 

, arts of design, 469 

Eidolon of the Indian Epic, 77 
Eira surprised by the Spartans, 160 
Eleusis, visions seen at, 15 

, interior of the temple of, 15 

— ~ — , emblematic worship at, 15 

, typical revelations of its mysteries, 15 

, procession of Alcibiades to, 309 

Eleusinian mysteries, 13, 14 

, organized foreign sources of, 16 

Elgin marbles, 488 

Elis, sacred territory of, 131 

Embroidery, 369 

Emigration, religious graft of, 9 

, its effects on Greek customs, 9 

Empedocles, his doctrine, 91 
Engineering of the Samians, 128 
Ephetse, court of, 165 
I • Ephialtes, treachery of, 253 

calumniates the Areopagites, 276 

Ephori established, 144 
Epic composers of India, 34 

machinery of Hesiod, 36 

Epics, pre-existent types of, 75 

Epic and tragic poets, examples of, 464 

Epicurism, 450 

Epidaurians at war with Athens, 276 

Epigoni and their allies, 103 

Epimeletai, duty of, 24 

Epipolse, attack upon, 347 
l , fate of the Athenian captives at, 349 

| Eponymous tendencies in the East, 87 
I Eponyms, or name-givers, 86 



Erechtheus, decision of, 62 
Eteocles, resolution of, 101 

, his combat with Polyneices, 102 

Ethical principles of Hesiod and Pindar, 75 

effects of music, 388 

Etymology, tendencies of the Greeks and 

Hindoos towards, 59 
Eupompus, painter, 501 
Eurybisedes the Spartan admiral, 234 
Euripides, dramas of, 394 

, his sentiments hostile to the popular 

polytheism, 395 

, effects of his poetry on morality, 396 

Eurystheus, the task-master of Heracles, 85 
, he is slain by Hyllus, 85 

Faith, Hellenic, application of, 4 

of the Phocians, 5 

Families, privileged, 51 
Fare, bill of, 450 
Farm service, Homeric, 372 
Fate, a mysterious power, 377 
Feast, description of, 452 
Female society, Homeric, 371 

, infanticide common, 416 

, education, two states of, 417 

— — , society as influenced by Pericles, 418 
Females, family seclusion of, 417 

, domestic employments of, 422 

, their extravagance, 427 

, education of, worked ill 4 for domestic 

happiness at Athens, 429 
Festive habits, 450 
Flowers, secret meaning of, 449 
Foreigners resident at Athens, 431 
Fonns, assumption of, by the gods, 31 

of the deities of East and West, 32 

Freedom, Athenian, precarious tenure of, 441 
Funeral ceremonies, 455-461 
Future punishments migratory, 92 

Games (Grecian), 16-25 

, national influence of, 22 

, their long continuance, 22 

, period of their close, 24 

of liberty, 264 

Gsea gives birth to Uranos, 27 
Genealogy, Homeric, Greek belief in, 4 
Geography of Greece, 121-135 

, physical effects of, on the Greeks, 134 

Ghosts of the unburied, condition of, 457 
Gods, temporary servitude of, 62 
Gold, abundant supply of, 370 
Golden age of Hesiod, 74 
Gongylus, governor of Byzantium, 265 

and Gylippus, arrival of, 345 

Gorgias the sophist, 399, 400 

Government, which is the most perfect ? 179 



530 



I INDEX. 



Greece, geographical posits 

, chief characteristics of, i. 

, parallelism of its rivers ana . _,untains, 

122, 133 

, products, imports, and exports of, 134 

, Persian invasion of, 214 

— — , history of, from the battle of Marathon, 

to the close of the Peloponnesian war, 

136-313 

Greeks, their facility in receiving legend, 1 

, sources of their worship, 2 

, the various influences which acted upon 

their religion, 9 

, their religious customs, 9, 10 

, their oracles and priests, 11-13 

•, their mysteries, 13-16 

, their games, 16-25 

, their mythology, 26-42 

, their popular legends, 43-120 

- — , their diet, 134 

, their social condition, 357 

, their domestic manners, 414 

Grote, on the legend of Heracles, 83 

— — , on the legend of the Argonauts, 107 

, on the legend of Theseus, 112 

, on the legend of Troy, 118 

Gylippus enters Syracuse, 345 
Gymnastics, 386, 387 

Hades, his dominion, 29 

or Tartarus, 36 

Hseterse, education of, 424 

, satirised in the New Comedy, 425 

Harmodius and Aristogiton's conspiracy, 198 

, statues of, 200 

Hecataeus opposes the Ionic revolt, 208 
Hecatoncheires, the three, 27 

, from the Indian type, 32 

Hector, exploits of, 115 

, deceived by the eidolon, and slain by 

Achilles, 117 
Hegias, sculptor, 484 
Helen carried off by Theseus, 110 

, the wife of Menelaus, 114 

, her abduction by Paris, 114 

Helios and Apollo, at first distinct, 55 
Hellanodices, rank of, 21 
Hellas (see Greece, and Greeks) 
Hellen and his sons, 85, 86 
Hellenic religion, its individuality, 3 

, its effects on warlike enterprise, 3 

, its application, 4 

Hellenic government, change of, 161 
Hellespont, bridge over, 223 
Helots, revolt of, 323 

, Cimon goes against them, 328 

Hephaistos, myth of, 68 

, arts and physical peculiarities of, 69 



Hephaistos is cast down from Olympus, 69 

describes his disasters at a banquet of 

the gods, at which he is cupbearer, 69 
, his favourite abode and workshop, 70 

Heracles, legend of, 81 

, his enterprises, 82 

marries Deianeira, 82 

slays the Centaur, 83 

, his death, 83 

, his mythus reviewed, 84 

, Heracula of the east, 84 

Herikeleya, a name of Bengal, 84 
Heraclidse expelled, 85 

regain their country, 85 

, grand expedition of, 85 

Here, legend of, 65 

, sanctuary and statue, 65 

, her artifice against Heracles, 82 

Hermae, mutilation of, 300 
Hermes, legend of, 56 

, his various accomplishments, 57 

carries off the oxen of Apollo, 57 

, his exchange of gifts, 58 

, his Homeric character, 58 

, other functions of, 59 

, his promise to Apollo, 60 

Hermocrates of Syracuse, 343 
Herodotus and his recitation, 391 
Heroic age, 75 
Heroes, legends of, 74-113 
Hesiod, his theogony didactic, 6 

, artificial scale of, 27 

■ , his epic machinery of Hindoo origin, 36 

, his style a relic of old systems, 37 

, his " Works and Days," 74 

Hesiodic hosts, position of, 32 
Hestia, legend and offices of, 70 

, colonial customs in connexion with, 70 

, identical with the Roman Vesta, 70 

Hestica reduced, 280 
Hipparchus assassinated, 199 
Hipparete, wife of Alcibiades, 294 
Hippias and Hipparchus, their joint sove- 
reignty, 198 

, conspiracy against, 198 

Hippias, tyranny of, 199 

seeks foreign aid, 199 

deposed, 200 

, policy of, 203 

Histiasus, device of, 208 
at Miletus, 211 

, his piracies at Byzantium and Chios, 211 

is taken prisoner and crucified, 211 

Homer, his powerful religious agency, 2 

■ and the Phapsodists, 360 

, his sympathies Greek ; not too partial,362 

, social position of, 363 

— — , political views, 364 



INDEX. 



Homer, time when he flourished, 364 

, geography of, 365 

, character of his deities, 375-377 

Homer's poetry, characteristics of, 3 

— — , its effects upon sculpture, 3 

, moral, religious, political, and warlike 

tendencies of, 3, 4 

Homeric age, Greeks of, 359 

post-Homeric age, 359 

Homeric genealogy, Greek belief in it, 4 

Homerid of Chios, 42, 74 

, style of 43 

, Horsemanship of Poseidon, 62 

j Hospitality of the Homeric age, 366, 371 

Housewifery, Athenian, 421 

Hydarnes commands the ' Immortal Band,' 253 

Hyllus slays Eurystheus, 85 

Hymnographer, his duties, 56 

Hyperbolus banished, 296 

Iambe, melodrama of, 51 
i Iliad and Odyssey, text of, fixed by Solon and 

Peisistratus, 361 
Iliad and Old Test., resemblance between, 360 
Imitative basis of European poetry, and its 

application to Greek mythology, 120 
Immorality, social, after the Homeric age, 382 
Immortality of the soul, opinions on, 396 

, distinctions in, 51 

Immortals, their instantaneous perfection, 59 
Inachus, legend of, 78 

India, the original country of the Greeks, 32^2 
Indian Epic composers, 34 

doctrines identical with Greek, 39 

j 1 In do-Persian connection, 42 
i Infanticide, female, common, 416 

, permitted at Athens, 385 

— , at Sparta, 404 
Informers at Athens, 437-439 
j Io, legend of, 78 

under the charge of Argos Panoptes, 79 

[ , her wanderings at Mount Caucasus, 79 

1 at Egypt, gives birth to Epaphus, 79 

, Iobates gives his daughter to Bellerophon, 89 
Iolcos, the Argonautic port, 123 
Ionia declares for the allies, 241 
Ionians, their naval resources, 212 

, impatience, and unsteadiness of, 212 

Ionian power, destruction of, 213 
( Ionic emigration, 167 

, twelve colonies formed, 167 

festival at Delos, 169 

revolt, 207, 213 

settlements, gradual, 168 

towns advantageously situated, 168 

, T >Hgenia, sacrifice of, 114 
i, duty of, 150 
i age, 75 



\ 531 

Isocrates the orator, 397, 403 
Ischomachus, household of, 421 
Isthmian games, 16, 17 
Isthmus of Corinth, 128 

Jason, leader of the Argonauts, 103 
Jesters, privileged, 453 
Jewelry, Homeric, 369 
Jocasta is married to (Edipus, 96 

commits suicide, 99 

John, St., his " Ancient Greece," 358 
Judges, Athenian, their corruptibility, 444 
Jurisprudence, Athenian, 429 

worked ill for the security of domestic 

property, 430 

Lacedaemonians lose their ascendancy, 320 
Laconia, its characteristics, 131, 132 
Lade, battle of, 212 

Landor, his " Pericles and Aspasia," 358 

Language and legend, analogy of, 7 

Laomedon holds Poseidon in slavery, 62 

Lapithse, see Centaurs 

Law, courts of, 443 

Lawsuits, Athenian, 442 

Legend, Greek facility in receiving, 1 

■ ■, its effects upon the Greeks, 2 

, expansion of, 6 

, how it should be viewed, 24 

, written sources of, 27 

Legendary faith in the historic ages, 4 

songs at sacred festivals, 7 

Legends in Oriental literature, 6 
— - of the gods, 43-74 

of heroes, 74-113 

, Greek, of Indian origin, 119 

Legislators, pagan, hypocrisy of, 392 
Leochares, sculptor, 486 
Leonidas, 249 

, ancestors of, 250 

at Thermopylae, 250 

-, his preparations, 251, 252 

— — , proposals from Xerxes, 252 

attacked bv the Persians, 253, 254 

, fall of, 255 

, monument to the memory of, 256 

Leto, legend of, 53 

repairs to Delos, 53 

Letters, Athenian, 358 
Leucadian promontory, 127 
Lightning, superstition concerning, 380 
Likhas, a Sanscrit term, 84 
Literary pleasures, 462 
Literature, Greek, 388 
Liturgies, public, cost of, 446, 447 
Locality, effects of, 9 

Local claimants for religious importance, 51 
Locrians, Western, 126 



532 



:udex. 



Logic of Aristotle, 393 

Lycophron's antipathy to his father, 162 

, his banishment, 162 
Lycurgus, Greek history, commences with, 
78, 138 

, difference in his chronology, 139 

, his travels to Crete and Asia Minor, 141 

, his travels into Egypt, 142 

is invited home, 142 

consults the oracle at Delphi, 143 

new-models the government, 143 

supported by the oracle, 144 

divides landed property, 145 

, his iron and leathern money, 146 

assaulted by Alcander, 148 

encourages marriage, 149 

, death of, 153 

compared with Moses, 153 

Lycurgus a rival of Peisistratus, 193 
Lysander defeats the Athenian fleet, 311 
instigates Pharnabazus to murder Alci- 

biades, 311 

— commands the allied fleet, 353 

defeats the Athenian fleet at Aigos- 

potamos, 354 
enters the harbour of Athens, 356 

Maia, the mother of Hermes, 57 

Maneveh Dherma Sastra, 90 

Mantinsea, battle of, 341 

Marathon, battle of, 204, 205 ; 215, 219 

Marbles, Elgin, 488, 489 

Mardonius marches into Greece, 214 

, his defeat and return to Asia, 215 

, his inactivity, 259 

, his death, 262 

Maritime position of Greece, 121 
Marriage, encouraged by Lycurgus, 149 

, respect paid to, politically, 424 

of Athenian females, arranged by their 

parents, 419 
— — ceremonies and presents, 420, 421 
Married life, in Aristophanes, 426 
Massistus, death of, 239 
Maya, an Indian vocable, 59 
Medaea, lulls to sleep the dragon, 106 
— ! — slays her brother Absyrtus, 106 

her stratagem and magic powers, 106 
Medicine, Homeric, 367 
Megacles, a rival of Peisistratus, 193, 195, 196 
Megarean war, 178 
Megareans, revolt of, 279 
Megaris, province of, 127 
Melancholy tone of Greek literature, 463, 464 
Melanthius, king of Athens, 165 
Melians sacrificed, 342 
Menostius sacrifices himself for Thebes, 102 
Mesogaia, of Attica, 126 



Messenia, its geographical position, 133 
Messenian war, the first, 158 
Messenian war, the second, 159, 160 
Metallurgy, ornamental, 367, 368 
Metamorphoses of India, 90, 91 
Metaneira left by the goddess, 48, 49 
Mia Tonsine, great vocalist, 41 
Migratory punishments, 92 
Miletus, settlement of, 167 

, its trade by sea and land, 168 

stormed, 213 

Milo, the athlete, 175 

Miltiades, his family and origin, 217 

king of the Dolonci, 217 

settles at Athens, 218 

, his services, 218, 219 

at the battle of Marathon, 205, 219 

, expedition to Paros, 219 

, his severe accident, 220 

unfavourable reception at Athens, 220 

heavily fined, 221 

dies in prison, 221 

Mitylene, revolt of, 333 

Minotaur slain by Theseus, 109 

Money of iron and leather, 146 

Monkeys, their worship, 85 

Moral philosophy, 392 , 

Morality, social, determined the language oi 

Aristophanes and Isocrates, 397 
Morals and religion, Greek, 387-403 
Mountainous character of Greece, 122, 123 
Mountains, renamed by the early rrnmigran' 

into Greece, 33, 34 
Moses, purity of his legislation, 190 
Muses of the East and West, 38 
Music, its sway, 40 

, how treated by the Hindoos, 41 

of the spheres, 41 

, Greek, 387 

, instrumental, 388 

Musico-astronomical analogy, 41 
Mycale, battle of, 240, 318 
Myron, sculptor, 486 

Myronides commands the Athenian fleet, 277 

ravages Boeotia, 278 

Mysteries, Eleusinian, 13 

, Greater and Lesser, 14 

, order of, 14 

— — , admission of noviciates, 15 

, visions seen at, 15 

Myth, the modern theory of, arbitrary and in- 
correct, 118, 119 

, modes of interpretation, 119 

Mythology, varieties in, 7 
—■ — , order and objects of, 26 

of the Greeks plausible, 118 

, its effect on public morals, 378 



INDEX. 



533 



Naik Gopal, his song and death, 41 
National character of the Athenians, 402 
Needy citizens, state provision for, 461 
Neileus, emigration of, 167 
Nemaean games, origin, locality, and nature of, 
17, 18 

, prizes, and presidency of, 18 

Mcias opposes Alcibiades' schemes, 299 

, feeble conduct of, 343 

Niobe, legend of, 90 

, her children slain by Apollo, 90 

, a subject of sculpture, 90, 92 

(Edipus, legend of, 95 

, king of Thebes, 96 

— — , his quarrel with Creon, 97 

journey from Corinth, 97 

puts out his own eyes, 99 

■ dependent upon his two sons, 100 

,his death, 100 

(Eta, Mount, a Titanic position, 84 

, the burning on, a Brahminical rite, 85 

Olive-trees of Attica, 125 
Olympic games, 19 
Olympiodorus, his service, 259 
Onomacritus, his doctrines, &c, 41 
Oracles of the Greeks, 11-13 
Oriental expansion of legends, 6 
Orpheus, cosmogony of, 37 
, his country, fame, &c, 38 

Painting, invention of, 492 

, ancient and modern compared, 502-504 

Painters of Greece, early, 492-502 
Pallas Athene, vide " Athene " 
Pamphilus, painter, 501 
Panaenus, painter, 494 
Parasite, his office, 453 
Paris preserved by the gods, 113 

carries off Helen, 114 

Parrhasius, painter, 498, 499 
Parthenon, the, 478, 479 
Patroclus slain by Hector, 116 

, fight around his body, 116 

Pausanias, birth of, 257 

heads the Greeks against Persia, 257 

marches from Sparta, 257 

takes post in Boeotia, 258 

, his contest with Masistius, 258 

, change of position, 259 

, his victory, 262 

gives an entertainment, 263 

marches against Thebes, 264 

commands the fleet, 264 

4 takes Byzantium, 264 

, his treachery, 265, 320 

tried and acquitted, 266 

ordered home from Bvzantiuro, 266 

[H. O.] 



Pausanias, his guilt established by a slave, 266 

, his death, 266, 267 

contrasted with Cimon and Aristides,265 

Pecuniary rewards at the Isthmian games, 17 
Peisistratus, description of, 193 

, his artifice, 194 

opposed by Solon, 194 

— receives a guard, 194 

disarms the Athenians, 195 

assumes the government, 195 

is banished, 195 

, restoration of; again expelled, 196 

, his advance on Attica, 196 

, his restoration, 197 

levies taxes, 197 

, his love of science, 197 

, his death, 198 

Pelasgian emigration from India, 32, 33 

nomenclature of localities, 33, 34 

Peloponnesian states, early history of, 136 
— — war, origin of, 277 

, third year of, 290 (see Pericles) 

Pelops, legend of, 89 

comes to Lydia, 92 

Penelope's web, 456 
Penthesileia and Memnon at Troy, 117 
Pentheus slain by the Theban Bacchantes, 94 
Periander, king of Corinth, 162 

, fond of the fine arts, 162 

, contradictory accounts of, 162 

, his rule at Corinth, 163 

Pericles, his resemblance to Peisistratus, 275 

enters on public life, 276 

invades the Peloponnesus, 278 

associated with Cimon, 279 

■ , severity of his administration, 280 

attempts to subdue Samos, 281 

, his final success, 282 

, his friends disgraced, 284 

, his reply to the Spartan ambassadors 

relative to the family of Megacles, 285 

, confusion in his accounts, 286 

directs the Peloponnesian war, 287 

, his cautious policy, 288 

, death and character of, 290, 291 

Perioeci, case of the, 160 
Persephone carried off by Hades, 47 

, restoration and departure of, 50 

Persian war, 203, 213-322 

camp plundered, &c. 263 

Persians, defeat of, 206 

abandon Greece, 207 

Pharnabazus, defeat of, 306 

Pheidon of Argos, despot of Corinth, 154 

aims at the presidency of the Olympian 

games, 154 

, his financial activity, statical, and 

monetary scales, 155 

2n 



534 

Phidias accused and acquitted, 284, 285 

, his school of sculpture, 477 

, works of, 477, 483 

Philosophical banquet, 455 

Philosophy, early Greek, 391 

Phineas, assisted by the Argonauts, 104 

Phocsea, commerce of, 168 

Phocseans, their emigration to Corsica, 168 

Phocian faith, 5 

Phocis and Doris at war, 325 

Phormion, -victories of, 332 

Pindus and Tomarus, 122 

Piracy, Homeric, 371 

Plague at Athens, 288 

in the camp, 289 

in the family of Pericles, 289 

Plataea, victory of, 239, 263, 318 

besieged by the Thebans, 286 

, first siege of, 330 

, blockade of, 331 

— — , part of the garrison escape, 331 

massacre of the remainder, 331, 332 

Platseans made free of Athens, 207 
Pleadings often irrelevant, 445 
Plutarch on Athenian morals, 436 
Poetry, European, imitative, 120 
Poets, teachers of the Greek religion, 374 
Polycleitus, sculptor, 484 
Polygnotus, painter, 494 
Polyneices, at the court of Adrastus, 100 
Poseidon, temple of, 16 

, his sovereignty, 29 

, legend of, 60-63 

Potations, 454 

Potidaea, war respecting, 328 
Poverty provided against by Solon, 461 
Priests and priestesses of the Greeks, 12 
Priesthood, not exclusive in Greece, 376 
Priestly and regal offices, 376 
Prizes at the Isthmian games, 16 
— ■ — at the Nemsean games, 18 

at the Olympic games, 21 

at the Pythian games, 24 

Prcetos, daughters of, 80 
Prcetus and Bellerophon, 88 
Promotheus, legend of, 77 

~, a representation, 80 

Protagoras, the sophist, 399 

Public speaking at Athens, 398 

Pylus, defence of, 335 

Pylus, sculptor, 486 

Pyrrha, the wife of Deucalion, 86 

Pythagoras, his doctrines, 91 

, history of, 172 

, his philosophy, 172 

, his parentage, travels, &c. 173 

, his doctrine and system, 174 

is president at Croton, 174 



Pythagoras establishes a political brotherhood, 
174 

dies at Metapontum, 176 

Pythagorean system, its influence, 174 
Pythagoreans, cause of their overthrow, 175 
Pythagoras, sculptor, of Samos, 486 
Pythia, of Apollo, 12 
Pythian games, 22 

Quarrels of Pelops' sons, 92 

Eambha changed to stone, 90 

Eeceipts, ancient, from Athenseus, 452 

Eecreations of the people, how supported, 440 

Regal and priestly offices united, 376 

Relics, Athenian, 5 

Religion, Hellenic, its individuality, 3 

, its effects upon warlike enterprise, 3 

, Greek, its origin Egyptian, 374 

Religious and legendary summary, 24 

ceremonies, Homeric, 374-382 

Religious sanctions, 378 
Rhapsodists recited Homer, 360, 361 
Riddles, 454 
Rites, sacrificial, 379 

Sacred war, the first, 191 

Sacrificial rites, 379 

Sages, the seven, 179 

Salamis, battle of, 235 

Samians, treachery of, at Lade, 212 

Samian war, 281, 327 

Samos, its political position, 169 

, attempts of Pericles to reduce it, 281 

Sardis, the Persian head-quarters, 210 
Scholastic establishments, 386 
Scopas, sculptor, 486 
Sculptors of Greece, early, 467-491 

, advantages of, 472 

Sculpture, introduction and progress of, 471 

Greek, the ideal in, 472 

Scyllis, sculptor, 475 

Scyros taken by Cimon, 270, 322 

Sedition, laws against neutrality in, 186 

Selymbria taken by stratagem, 307 

Seisachthia, of Solon, 181 

Senate of four hundred, 184 

, qualifications for, 185 

Sicilian expedition projected, 298, 342 
Sicilians victorious over the Athenians, 346, 

348 
Silver age, 75 

Slaves, Athenian, laws respecting, 188 

, how employed, 411-413 

in Sparta, 409-411 

Slavery, Homeric, 372, 373 
Social condition, modern, compared with the 
Greek, 465 



INDEX. 



535 



Social condition of the Ancient Greeks, 

357-373 
Social life, semi-civilized, 381 

, conclusions respecting, 461 

Solon, his birth and parentage, 176 
, his poetical talent, travels, first appear- 
ance in public, 177 

, his wisdom, 178 

at the court of Periander, 179 

at Miletus, 180 

returns to Athens, 180 

, his friendship towards Epimenides, 180 

declines the royalty, 181, 193 

——, patriotism of, 195 

, his laws, 181-188 

, generosity of, 182 

quits Athens, 188 

visits Egypt, 188 

, his return and death, 1 89 

and Moses compared, 190 

left cases unprovided for, 190 

wrote his laws from right to left, 191 

Solon's laws for different ranks of society, 183 
laws on amusements, 186 

respecting women and children, 187 

about slaves, 188 

ophists, 398 

, their pretensions, 400 

satirised by Aristophanes, 401 

'Sotpitrrri;, early and later meaning of, 401 

Sparta, its locality, 131, 132 

, early history of, 137 

, infanticide permitted at, 404 

ipartan kings, their privileges, 145 

money, 146 

public tables, 147 

— — bachelors, 148, 149 

community of wives, 149 

— — , exposure of children, 149 

— youths, 150, 405 

severity, 151 

military service and system, 151, 156 

women, their courage, &c. 152, 407 

Helots, 152, 409 

■ ■ envy of Athens, 285 

allies, 287 

Spartans, their domestic education during 
childhood, 405 

, their sports ferocious, 406 

• , their tenure of property, 407 

~, the condition of their women, 152, 407 

, their time of marriage, &c. 407 

, their marriage customs ; respect paid to 

the married ; celibacy discouraged, 408 
Spercheius River, 122 
Sphinx, vide (Edipus, 95 
State trials, 437 
punishments, 438 



Summary of Greek history, 314-356 
Superstition, use made of, by poets and states- 
men, 458 
Susa, march from, 223 

Sybarites defeated; their city destroyed, 176 
Symplegades, dangerous rocks of, 3 04 
Syracuse besieged, 344 

Tanagra, battle of, 277, 325 

Tantalus, his history, 89, 90 

Taxation for public amusements, 440, 441 

Taygetus, ridge of, 132 

Teiresias and (Edipus, 96 

Teleklus, his snare, 158 

Temple of Zeus at Olympus, 19 

Thales, natural philosopher and moralist, 393 

Thebes, legend of, 93 

, plague at, 96 

siege of, invaders repulsed, 101 

■ surrendered to the Epigoni, 103 

, vengeance of the Greeks on, 319 

Theism, change of, to idolatry, 374 
Themistocles, early oratory of, 229 

accuses Aristides, 230 

advises the building of a navy, 231 

, his bold advice, 232 

ingenious schemes of, 233 

able conduct of, at Artemisium, 234 

, his stratagem at Salamis, 235 

proposes the destruction of the bridge 

over the Hellespont, 236 
— influences the Persian movements, 236 

, public honours decreed to, 237 

proposes to fortify the city, 242 

, his embassy to Sparta, 242 

, his crooked policy, 243 

associated with Aristides and Xanthip- 

pus, 243 

accused by the Spartans, 246 

is banished, 247 

i seeks shelter at the Persian Court, 247 

, his reception by Artaxerxes, 248 

, his death, 249 

■ •, his policy and success, 321 

Theogony of Hesiod, 27 

Theology, bad, better than none, 382 

of Anaxagoras, 394 

of Euripides, 394 

Theoroi, splendour of, 24 
Thera, isle of, 106 
Theseus, legend of, 108 

vanquishes Hippolyte, 109 

slays the Minotaur, 109 

■ , his political achievements, 109 

carries off Helen, 110 

, his tomb, 110 

, his bones recovered by Cimon, 270 

, Grote's remarks on, 112 



536 



INDEX. 



Thesmothetae, oath of, 188 
Thracian expedition, 333 
Thrasybulus recals Alcibiades, 304 
Thessaly, its fertility, 123 
Thucydides' exile, 284 
Thyestes, curse of, 93 
Timanthus, painter, 500 
Timon, the misanthrope, 298 
Timotheus, sculptor, 486 
Titans, progeny of, 27 

1 liberated, 28 

, Titanic war, 29 

Tissaphernes shelters Alcibiades, 302 

interferes in the affairs of Greece, 350 

Toilette, Greek, 428 

Tolmides, rashness of, 280 

Tomarus, Mount, 34 

Tradesmen, Athenian, 428 

Treason, law of, its latitude, 437 

Trojan kings, their dynasty, 113 

Trojan war, evil effects of, 383 

Trojans, cause of Poseidon's animosity to, 62 

Troy, legend of, 113 

, allies of, 114 

, capture of, 118 

, Mr. Grote's remarks upon, 118 
Truce of 30 years with Sparta, 280 
Typical revelations of the mysteries, 15 
Typhceus, birth of, 30 

, his destruction by Zeus, 30 

Typhys, steersman of the Argo, 104 

, death of, 105 

Tyrtseus, description of, 159 

Uranos dethroned, 28 

Vahan, or vehicle of the gods, 89 
Valmiki, golden age of, 76 
Vesta, Roman, 70 
Victory, prize of, 16 

Walls of Corinth, 129 

War, its cruelty mitigated, 366 



Wealth of private Athenians in danger from 

informers, 439 
Widows and heiresses, political regulations 

respecting, 426 
Wise men of Greece, the seven, 179 
Women, Athenian, public appearance of, 187 
Worship, Greek sources of, 2 
, its emblematic character, 15 

Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, 275 

, son of Pericles, 289 

Xanthus, king of Bceotia, 165 
Xenophon defeated, 332 
Xenophon's testimony to the Athenians, ^ 
Xerxes makes preparations for invading G 

222, 314 

marches from Susa, 223 

arrives at Abydos, passes the Helle 1 

223-225, 315 

appoints twelve generals of division 

reviews his forces, 226 

■ traverses Thrace, 227 

arrives at Thermae, 227, 250 

marches to Thermopylae, 251, 315 

expects the surrender of the Greeks, 

, his repulse, 316 (see Leonidas) 

attacks Delphi, 316 

is defeated at Artemisium and Salami? 

234, 235, 317 

passes the Hellespont, 317 

returns to Asia, 317 

Zagreus, a form of Dionysus, 38 
Zeus, temple of, at Olympus, 19 

, statue of, 19 

, his impressive character, 28 

overcomes the Titans, 29 

, his dominion, 29 

, his character and position compare 

with Diupeti, 31 
Zeus Olympius, statue of, 480 
Zeus Pelasgikos, 34 
Zeuxis, painter, 495 



I 
;i 



i 



i 



o - ^' . . 4 ^ 'in 



<* 



o o 



A 



/J5 



,0 o 



.CP 




,0 o 



-- 



